


Yu-Gi-Oh: Dedication through Light and Darkness

by Mathemagician93



Series: Yu-Gi-Oh: Card of Sanctity [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Duel Monster Spirits, Lots of continuity references, OCs as Reincarnations of Canon Past Characters, Our villains are finally making their moves, Plenty of Duels, Plenty of Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 72,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26116129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mathemagician93/pseuds/Mathemagician93
Summary: Seto Kaiba is back in the world and adjusting to how it’s moved on without him. One thing that unfortunately hasn’t changed is his tendency to attract megalomaniacs aiming for some magical goal. When the latest enemy gets desperate, Kaiba, Yugi, and their friends face a war on multiple fronts, and not every problem can be solved by drawing the correct card…
Relationships: Mazaki Anzu | Tea Gardner/Mutou Yuugi
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh: Card of Sanctity [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1203583
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it took a long time for this to get finished, but we're finally here. This is part four of the six-part series that started with A Feather of the Phoenix, and the last one I got to complete. Special thanks to Quinnec for persevering through so many hard drive crashes while trying to beta this. I hope you all enjoy this!

Burning pain seared through his hand at the touch of the newest card, as if he was holding the sun instead of mere paper. It was enough to make him finally realize the joy he felt was not truly his own. Memories of his brother fallen to the floor in defeat and his father turning his back on him fought with the golden chains attempting to keep his mind in a state of complacency. In a desperate attempt to avoid repeating his past mistakes, Yako tried to rip the card in half, but his body rebelled and all his hand managed was a slight twitch.

The control on his mind tightened once again, but unlike before he managed to keep himself aware of his actions. He may not be able to fully fight the effects, but there were bound to be gaps in the control. He might not be able to save himself, but he may just be able to call out for help…

* * *

Seto Kaiba’s eyes snapped open as he sat up in bed and looked at the clock. It was an ingrained habit even though he had known exactly what he would see—it was 4:00 am, precisely four hours to the second after he had fallen into what he supposed counted as sleep for him now. It was one of the many oddly regular annoyances he had to deal with ever since his return. Spending significant time in the afterlife hadn’t been kind on his body, and while he had managed to reconstruct himself on Earth with a little bit of help things were just off. Hearing Mokuba snoring in the next room did serve as a reminder that everything was well worth it. He may have to deal with only being able to get four hours of dreamless lounging, a heartbeat that never left sixty beats per minute, and having to force himself to eat, drink, and walk into a bathroom at regular intervals to maintain an illusion of normality but it was worth it to spend time with the ones he loved.

Getting out of bed, he walked to the kitchen and allowed himself a moment of brief satisfaction as he started making breakfast. In addition to the overall perspective on what was important, his sojourn in the afterlife gave him a greater appreciation for the little things in life too. It was rather nice being able to flip a switch and see lights come on without having to use flint and steel—or later magic—to light a fire. The sheer versatility of modern life almost made it worth the slight feeling of loss that accompanied the lack of magic in the air as the world slowly lost whatever it was that had allowed sorcerers to be somewhat common in ancient civilizations. Judging by everyone but the Pharaoh’s reaction when he had finally managed to convert magic into electricity and power up his new duel disk again, Kaiba could see why mankind might have made that transition.

Still, despite his enjoyment for getting to live once again, he couldn’t help but begin to feel a bit unfulfilled with his second chance. The whole point of his trip to the afterlife was to face the Pharaoh and finally put the past behind him so he could focus on the future. In a way, it had been a rousing success: he had managed to defeat the Pharaoh in duel five of an agreed upon best of five match. He’d also picked up a variety of skills, such as the ability to prepare his own food if dropped in a relatively technology free area, enough vocabulary in ancient Egyptian that he could probably hold a conversation, and the ability to magically summon forth duel monsters if the need arose. 

Seto kept rummaging through the cupboards until he found a loaf of bread that was nearing its expiration date. He may not need to eat, but it was still important to develop the habit, so he started making himself some toast for breakfast. It was pointless to make anything too fancy since he also had lost most of his sense of taste, but that didn’t mean he would let food go to waste. He’d have to find some other way to use this up in the near future. Maybe when Mokuba woke up, he could try his hand at making French toast for his brother’s breakfast. He checked the fridge and was happy to find they had eggs still, so he would be able to at least test things out. It couldn’t end up worse than some of his other cooking experiments.

With a plan in place, Seto made himself some toast and then opened up his laptop. Even with his self-imposed exile from KaibaCorp, the past few weeks hadn’t been enough for him to catch up on around two years’ worth of news and current events. There were always trends it paid to keep on top of in the business world, and Seto fully intended to be at his best.

The sound of the shower starting interrupted his reading, and Seto glanced to the clock to see it was 4:30. It was still too early for Mokuba to be getting up normally, which meant something must have been bothering his little brother to wake him up. Normally he’d think about giving a lecture about the importance of sleep, but considering his own sleep habits as the CEO, he couldn’t give a speech without being a hypocrite. He’d just have to settle for making breakfast

If he were a weaker man, Seto might have admitted to a small feeling of hurt when Mokuba gave a suspicious glance at the plate of food sitting at his chair. “Relax, this was so simple even I wasn’t able to screw this up.”

“Uh huh,” Mokuba said. “So why’s it brown?”

Seto scoffed haughtily, “It’s only a little overcooked, not burnt like last time. Besides, you’re up a little too early to complain about free breakfast.”

“Says the guy who used to never get more than five hours of sleep a night.”

Seto just rolled his eyes at Mokuba’s tired comeback, but he couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face when Mokuba took a second bite of his breakfast. At least it was edible enough to warrant eating the whole thing instead of trying to discretely throw it away when Mokuba thought he wasn’t looking. The rest of breakfast passed mostly in silence while Seto kept reading and Mokuba slowly woke up over the course of his breakfast. Seto was used to these quiet mornings, so it was a surprise when only a few minutes later Mokuba grabbed his attention.

“Hey Seto, I know you don’t want to get involved in the company again, but I could really use your help. Mind if I ask for some advice?”

“Mokuba, you can always ask for advice. I want to make sure it stays your company—I’m happy to serve as an advisor.”

Mokuba smiled. “Okay, you remember how I had to sort of hack the system with dark magic in order to send a message to you, right?”

“Considering the only reason I’m here is because of that message, I think it’s safe to say yes.”

Seto kept his face impassive, but inwardly smiled when Mokuba rolled his eyes at him. “Ha ha, very funny. Anyway, I’ve been trying to smooth things over since then, but apparently the board of advisors has identified the ‘culprit’ and is going to fire her today.”

Seto raised an eyebrow. “So, they’ve identified someone to take the fall. I could have warned you there would be problems with meddling with the Shadow Realm.”

Mokuba grimaced. “You think I didn’t know that? I was ready to deal with the consequences, but I thought I would be the one dealing with them. Now it’s falling to someone else. What am I supposed to do? I can’t exactly say I hacked the system without the obvious follow up question of why, especially since there wasn’t any data that was copied or deleted. I can’t just go ‘hey, I was using dark magic to break the dimensional barrier to the afterlife.’

“Couldn’t you have just gotten your girlfriend to hack the system in such a way it was obvious the hack came from outside the company?”

Mokuba blinked a few times. “Okay, that’s actually a great idea.” He paused for a second before adding, “Also, Rebecca’s not my girlfriend.”

Seto smirked. “Right. So, you’re telling me the security system doesn’t record you going off the grid with her for six hours in your secure bedroom. Either you pulled off the Adena Maneuver with her, or you were doing something else that may need to lead to a very embarrassing talk. Either way, it’s not exactly something you would do with someone who was just a friend.”

Mokuba blushed and stammered for a few seconds. “We just went to the mall, I swear. Besides, that’s totally normal for friends to do. Maybe you’d know that if you ever bothered to make any friends of your own.”

Seto couldn’t help but blink in shock. It was a familiar accusation to have hurled at him from Yugi’s friends, but coming from Mokuba, it was much harder to shake off. He couldn’t help his petulant tone as he replied. “I have some friends. There’s Atem, , Kisara…”

Realizing he was listing off people who were technically dead, Seto resolved he would need to talk to Yugi, who was the closest thing he had to a living friend. It was bound to be a long conversation considering how much Yugi would want to hear about Atem.

Still, all of that was a problem for another time. “Let’s get back to this later. Who is the scapegoat? I’m guessing it’s someone with a title but not much power.”

Mokuba rolled his eyes. “I wish. We’re about to lose our lead developer. I guess Sara just had too many red flags for the board to ignore.”

Seto narrowed his eyes and Mokuba just sighed and pulled up the employment history of the lead developer on his laptop and turned it to Seto, who started scrolling down the list as Mokuba narrated. “She does have a lot of history with people who tried to take over the company. She was adopted by Pegasus as a teenager, worked as an intern under the Big Five, worked for Scott Irvine to develop Kingdom, and worked for Schroeder Corporation before coming here. Since practically anyone with an employment history can be connected back to Dartz because he had his hand in so many corporations, it’s almost surprising she hasn’t tried anything shady.”

Seto idly wondered how this Sara had even gotten hired in the first place with that history, but he supposed her work at least proved she was highly skilled, if unlucky in the pursuits of her previous employers. He was already starting to formulate a plan that might help save her job when he scrolled to the top of her file and had all other thoughts banished from his mind. He couldn’t help the icy glare that he directed at his brother.

“The resumé is a nice touch, but do you actually expect me to believe she earned this job?”

“What?”

“Admit it, you only hired her because she looks like that.”

Mokuba blinked in surprise before sending Seto a glare of equal ferocity. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like your accusing me of inappropriate conduct. What do her looks have to do with her development skill? Besides, she’s older than you are. She’s _way_ too old for me!”

Seto couldn’t help the confusion that crossed his face until realization dawned on him.

“That’s… that’s not what I meant. Sorry.” Apologies from Seto Kaiba were rarer than gold, yet Mokuba waved it away with a casual shrug.

“No problem, Seto. But what’s up with Sara? Why would you think…?”

Seto sighed. “I guess I never gave you a description to go with the name. You know Yugi and I look extremely similar to the two past pharaohs. If we are their reincarnations, this Sara would be _her_ reincarnation. The hair’s a bit different, but her face, those eyes,” he glanced down once more at the picture, unable to tear his gaze away, “beyond that she’s the spitting image of Kisara—the favored wife of and the origin of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.”

Mokuba blinked in shock for a few seconds before he burst out laughing. It took him a few seconds to calm down enough to continue speaking.. “Okay, I admit, I would have hired her for that reason alone. Unlike you, I actually find the whole ancient Egyptian reincarnation thing really cool. It’s one of the reasons I hired my secretary—but that doesn’t apply in this case. I’m sure we can go into the whole past lives things with her at some point, especially once you swoop in and help save her job.” Mokuba grinned slyly.

Seto rolled his eyes and sighed. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not like I’m exactly Pharaoh Seto and she’s not exactly Kisara. Maybe we were destined to meet, but I’m not going to let destiny control what I do with my life. Destiny ultimately give me the cards to play with, but I have the control to determine how I play them.”

Mokuba rolled his eyes in playful surrender. “Fine, no more matchmaking then—even if someone who seems like the perfect candidate just somehow ends up in your life. That still doesn’t mean we should just let her get fired. Do you have any idea how we can stop the Board from firing her?”

Seto started trying to put something together, but even if he had the full scope of his old powers it would have taken something drastic for him to change this decision. Since Mokuba had less overall control, it would take something creative. Luckily, creativity happened to be one of his strong points, so it didn’t take long to form the outline of a plan.

“Okay, I have an idea. No guarantees it will work, and I’m going to need to do a bit of research first to make sure it’s even possible to try. Still, I’m going to need to ask if you’re sure you want to do this. If there is a loophole we can exploit, it’s going to be a one-time thing. Are you sure you’d want to use your one chance to stop a firing on this person?”

Mokuba immediately responded. “Of course. What right do I have to weigh someone’s current worthiness against some hypothetical employee in the future? Here’s someone who I know doesn’t deserve to get fired, so I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that.”

Seto smiled. “And that attitude is why you’ll become a far better CEO than I could ever be. I’ll take some time to confirm my idea will work, but you’ll have to do something for me as well. See if you can either assign or create a position for me that allows me to sit in on the Board of Directors. Make me CEO Emeritus if you have to, but I want to be able to see everyone’s reaction in person if this works.”

* * *

Seto glanced at the clock and was surprised to see it was only 5:30. Finding transcriptions of the arbitration case from five years ago had been much easier than anticipated, and between those and a quick glance through the Kaiba Corporation employment policy to see there wasn’t any major change in the intervening years. It wouldn’t be too difficult for a lawyer to argue that an official statement by the CEO would be binding—which would give an employee all the more power in arbitration.

Of course, the knowledge wasn’t helpful unless the soon-to-be-fired employee knew about it. This Sara was likely going to be walked out today, so she’d have to be ready. With no idea when she usually went in to work and no idea of the timing when the Board would actually fire her, he would have to act fast. Luckily, her employment file happened to include her phone number. The phone rang six times before a tired sounding voice answered. Seto immediately got to the point.

“Ms. Gravenor? This is Seto Kaiba. I’m calling to let you—”

“Right. Of course this is Seto Kaiba. The man who was basically everyone’s celebrity crush, invented technology that let him directly access people’s minds, was confident enough to threaten to fire God, and has recently cut off from all contact with society. That’s exactly the person who would be calling me at this ungodly hour of the morning. More likely, this is either a prank call, or my subconscious was too lazy to come up with the image of you shirtless in the desert again and decided to just make you a voice.”

Seto pulled the phone from his ear to simply stare at it. That… had not been what he’d expected. Seto’s grip on his phone tightened. He wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact that the reincarnation of Kisara kept having dreams about the Pharaoh Seto but thought they were of him, the fact that she was shooting down his call so quickly, or the fact that she was right that this wasn’t something he would normally ever do. Still, he was nothing if not determined, and he had promised Mokuba he would do his best to help.

“As entertaining as your theories are, I assure you I am in fact Seto Kaiba. Considering all of the trouble my more advanced virtual systems caused for my brother, I thought it best to go back to something as archaic as a cell phone. As for the desert comment, I thought I had done my best to purge all evidence of that poorly edited video when that Ishtar woman named an Egyptian pharaoh after me.”

The last bit was in reference to a video that had never actually existed, though it was based partially on the truth. Once the Ishtars had completed their family duty to allow Atem to reclaim his memories and return to the afterlife, they had been able to take what had been closely guarded family secrets and start bringing them out into the public light. One of these such secrets were the existence of two previously unknown pharaohs. Officially, their names were discovered as part of a new archeological site. Because the ancient Egyptians didn’t write vowels, there had been some debate on whether the second of the two pharaohs should have been Set or Seti when Ishizu put her foot down and demanded the name be recorded as Seto.

Some people who knew that Ishizu had been one of the forces behind the Battle City tournament, as well as Seto Kaiba’s disdain for looking towards the past, immediately drew the conclusion that she had named the Pharaoh after him just to get under his skin. While that wasn’t the truth, it was certainly much more convenient of an explanation. It also wasn’t something that could be proven—the pharaoh Seto had taken great measures to ensure history would have a hard time remembering the time of the Millennium Items. Atem’s name had to be scrubbed from history as a safeguard against Zorc, and Seto took things the extra mile by burying the Millennium Items and launching a smear campaign against his own name. By the time a couple of generations had passed, the true knowledge of the Shadow Games had been lost, and Seto was only remembered as a usurper to the throne.

However, unlike his ancient counterpart, the modern Seto wasn’t content to be ignored. Having hopefully smoothed over the rather awkward start to the conversation, he continued. “Regardless of whether or not you believe my identity, I have important news for you. As I’m sure you are aware, Kaiba Corporation has been investigating a security risk since I was hospitalized. The Board of Directors has decided to fire a scapegoat to look like they’ve resolved the matter, and they’ve selected you due to your unfortunate association with past employers.”

Seto heard a sharp intake of breath over the line. “Okay, seeing as that pinch hurt, I’m going to say this isn’t a dream. Also, you’re a bit too well-informed to be a prank call…unless you’re really good at it. Let’s say hypothetically you are Seto Kaiba, and hypothetically I am going to be fired today. Why are you calling me about it?”

Seto smirked—it was nice to have a conversation where he could just get to the point. “Mokuba believes you are worth jumping through hoops to save, and he entrusted me with finding a way to do it. I can’t save your job, but I can give you an opportunity to save it yourself. Bring your deck with you to work. If you start getting walked out, demand to speak to your HR representative. Instruct them to reference the firing of Richard Goodwin. After winning the court case, I made the statement that employees who wished to dispute their employment ending should duel the CEO instead of taking things to court, and if they managed to win, they could keep their job. Nothing in the company policy overrides that statement, which is part of official record.”

Seto heard a groan over the line. “Okay, that’s the kind of thing only the real Seto Kaiba would say…oh, shit. That means you heard what I said earlier. Um, can we just forget that part of this conversation ever happened?”

Seto smirked. “Gladly. Now I should warn you, the Board won’t be happy about this. Also, Mokuba won’t be able to go easy on you in the upcoming duel, so you’d better be prepared. I expect to see a performance that proves he’s right to have faith in you.”

* * *

Seto couldn’t help feeling excited as the duel between Mokuba and Sara was about to begin. He hadn’t had a chance to duel with his brother since his return from the afterlife, so this would be his first time seeing Mokuba duel in person. Of course, it would have been much more enjoyable to duel him in person or watch in a tournament setting, but he would have to make do with sitting with the rest of the Board of Directors in an otherwise empty Kaiba Dome. To prove he wasn’t letting Sara win, Mokuba had consented to extra monitoring on his deck, meaning the audience had a clear picture of every card he drew and played. Of course, Seto didn’t care about that, instead letting himself get swept up into the game.

As the challenger, Sara was given the option of going first. She drew her initial card before immediately playing it. “I activate the spell card, Dragon Shrine! This lets me send one dragon from my deck to the graveyard, and if it was a Normal monster, I can send one additional dragon. So, I’ll send my Rabidragon and my Keeper of the Shrine to the graveyard.” The rabbit-like dragon and scaled humanoid faded into the shrine composed of bones, but Sara wasn’t done with her move yet.

“Next, I activate Card of Consonance! By discarding a Dragon-type Tuner monster with 1000 or less attack, I can draw an additional two cards. So, I’ll send my Flamvell Guard to the graveyard as well.” While Sara drew her two cards, Seto couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance. On one hand, he could appreciate Sara’s strategy, as it already appeared similar to his new deck with the theme of discarding dragons to use them later. On the other, it was a bit too eerie to see Kisara’s reincarnation use a strategy that would clearly benefit from having the Blue-Eyes White Dragon in her deck.

Of course, Sara had no way of knowing Seto’s thoughts, so she quickly continued with her turn. “One of the cards I just drew was Ancient Rules, which I’ll play now. This lets me Special Summon a Normal monster from my hand, almost like we’re back in the early days of the game. I’ll summon my Tri-Horned Dragon in attack mode, then set one card face down and end my turn.”

The wingless dragon appeared on the field, but Seto was far busier paying attention to Mokuba. Since Seto was able to see every card in his hand, he could tell his brother was about to pull off one of the fast openings his Cyber Dragon deck was known for. Mokuba drew his next card, adding Fusion Reserve to his hand of Cyber Dragon, Cyber Dragon Core, Polymerization, Super Strident Blaze, and Rare Metalmorph. While he didn’t have anything that would let him get past Sara’s dragon on this turn, he was well set up for the next one.

“First, I’ll summon my Cyber Dragon Core in attack mode. Not only is this little guy able to be treated as Cyber Dragon, but he lets me add my Cyber Emergency from my deck to my hand.” The mechanical whelp appeared on the field, but it didn’t last long. “Since I now have a Cyber Dragon on the field, I can use my Polymerization to fuse him with the Cyber Dragon in my hand to summon forth Cyber Twin Dragon!” Cyber Dragon Core started growing while a second Cyber Dragon appeared on the field, but before the two dragons could start welding together Sara smirked.

“Sorry, Mr. Kaiba, but I’m afraid I’m not going to let you do that. I activate my trap, Champion’s Vigilance! As long as I control a level 7 or higher Normal Monster, I can negate the summon of a monster and destroy it. So, your Cyber Twin Dragon goes straight to the Graveyard!” Sara’s dragon was consumed by a fiery aura, which then flew at the combining dragons and removed them from the field. Mokuba blinked in shock before smiling.

“And here I was worried you wouldn’t be able to hold your own in this duel. That was a great move, but I’m not done yet. I’ll activate the Cyber Emergency I just added to my hand. This handy spell lets me add any Cyber Dragon archetype monster to my hand, and I’ll grab another Cyber Dragon Core. After that, I’ll set these two cards face down and end my turn.”

Seto knew that neither Rare Metalmorph nor Fusion Reserve would be able to protect Mokuba’s life points on this turn, but they would set the stage for Mokuba to counterattack the turn after when combined with the Cyber Dragon Core he had in his hand. Sara didn’t have the advantage of that knowledge, though, so after she drew her next card, she immediately set to work on trying to clear out one of Mokuba’s traps. “Since I control a dragon, I can activate my Stamping Destruction to destroy one of your spells or traps and inflict 500 damage to you. I’ll use it to destroy the card on my left.”

Tri-Horned Dragon pounced into the air ready to descend on the targeted card, but Mokuba smirked in response. “Bad choice. I’m going to activate that card right now—Fusion Reserve!” The trap card flipped up just before Tri-Horned Dragon landed on it, destroying it and knocking Mokuba down to 7500 life points. “Your card may have destroyed my trap, but it doesn’t negate its effects. First, I’ll show you another copy of Cyber Twin Dragon that’s in my Extra Deck. Then, I get to add one monster listed on the card from my deck to my hand, and recycle a Polymerization from the Graveyard. Since there is only one monster named on the card, my only choice is to add my second Cyber Dragon to my hand.”

Mokuba added the two cards to his hand, but Sara wasn’t particularly worried. “So, that gives you all the materials you need to summon Cyber Twin Dragon again. However, I’m not sure that will help you as much as you think it will. It’s still my move, and I summon Rider of the Storm Winds!” A long-haired sage riding on a black dragon appeared, being held aloft by gusting winds. However, despite the impressive sight, the creature was a fairly weak monster on its own—although Seto saw it had effects that made up for that.

Sara, however, wasn’t planning on using the card for its effects. “Now, my level 1 Rider of the Storm Winds tunes my Level 8 Tri-Horned Dragon to Synchro Summon my Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon!” Seto couldn’t help but wonder if he had misheard the name as being so similar to his own dragons when the Rider of the Storm Winds changed into a ring of light and Tri-Horned Dragon converted into eight glowing stars lined up through the center of the ring. At that point, a column of rainbow-colored light burst through the center of the ring, and Seto felt an uncomfortably familiar charge fill the air. He could once again feel himself surrounded by ambient magical energy.

While the apparent infusion of magic was worrying enough, what really got to Seto was the particular feeling of the energy. In the afterlife, the energy was fairly calm, existing sort of as an omnipresent comforting warmth. This felt more like what he had dealt with when he was trapped between dimensions, feeling like he was caught in a raging storm. He had felt it once before on Earth, where the energy had helped him awaken from his coma. However, that had easily been explained. Ancient Fairy Dragon was a companion to a central American deity, and any divine monster tended to have powerful effects on the world of the living. This new monster so strongly resembled a Blue-Eyes that it was likely just another interpretation of the same spirit. If it had the same effect, then perhaps it was the very nature of Synchro Summoning that caused the rift, and that would mean an entire game mechanic might be too dangerous for general public use.

However, Seto was the only person present with enough experience to recognize the exact feeling of magic. Mokuba gave an almost imperceptible wince that indicated he might have felt something, but that was the only sign anybody else was even aware of the potential issue. Sara just continued on with her move.

“My new monster might be a bit weaker offensively than Tri-Horned Dragon was, but it makes up for that with its effects. Until the end of the next turn, my Dragon monsters are unable to be destroyed by card effects. In addition, on each of my Standby Phases I’m able to revive one Normal Monster from my Graveyard. However, I don’t feel like waiting that long. I’ll activate my spell card, Silver’s Cry! With this, I can immediately resurrect one Dragon-type Normal Monster, so I’ll bring back my Rabidragon in attack mode!”

The rabbit-like dragon appeared on the field, and Seto couldn’t help but wonder how many monsters Sara would have that would be either based on or at least similar to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Clearly, destiny was having another laugh at his expense. At least this rabbit-like version wasn’t as blatant as its silver companion that had inverted attack and defense points compared to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Seto could tell Mokuba was holding back a comment about it as well, likely for after the duel when they could openly discuss the ancient connection. At this time, however, Sara was merely concerned with using her monsters in the game.

“Azure-Eyes, attack Mokuba directly with Silver Lightning!” Seto clenched his fist. Clearly, Pegasus must have been laughing at how he was technically not releasing another Blue-Eyes when creating this card. The lightning blasted through Mokuba’s life points, knocking him down to 5000. When he didn’t activate any cards in response, Sara continued her turn. “Now, Rabidragon, attack him directly with Bunny Blizzard!” The snowstorm ripped through 2950 of Mokuba’s life points, leaving him with 2050. With no other cards left to play, Sara ended her turn, and Seto knew Mokuba had been waiting for this moment to make a comeback.

“You already know I have both of these cards, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m playing them. I’ll summon Cyber Dragon Core, using its effect to add Cybernetic Fusion Support to my hand. Then, I activate Polymerization, fusing my Cyber Dragon Core with the Cyber Dragon in my hand to summon Cyber Twin Dragon.” This time around, Sara didn’t have any cards she could activate to stop the summoning of the two-headed dragon, allowing it to appear on the field with a roar. Sara didn’t seem too worried about the 2800 attack point monster since it was weaker than her Rabidragon, but Mokuba took that moment to activate his facedown card.

“My monster might be weaker than yours now, but that won’t last long. With Rare Metalmorph, my Cyber Twin Dragon gains 500 attack points. That makes him stronger than both of your monsters, and he just so happens to be able to attack twice. Your Azure-Eyes doesn’t protect your monsters from destruction by battle. Cyber Twin Dragon, destroy both of her monsters. Evolution Twin Burst!” The two heads of Mokuba’s dragon each unleashed a blast of orange plasma, wiping out both of Sara’s monsters and dropping her down to 6850 life points. However, her field was only empty for a moment when the shrine of dragon bones once again appeared on the field, with Keeper of the Shrine stepping out of it.

“Whenever one of my Dragons are destroyed, I am able to Special Summon Keeper of the Shrine from my Graveyard. Since he can be used as two tributes for summoning a Dragon-type monster, it’s a good way to ensure I always am able to get out high-level monsters. Now it’s my turn.” She drew her next card and smirked at Mokuba.

“Your monster might be an offensive juggernaut, but I’ve got a card that can stop it in its tracks. I activate Dragon’s Mirror, removing my Flamvell Guard and Tri-Horned Dragon from play in order to summon First of the Dragons in defense mode!” The ornate mirror appeared on the field, where the reflections of Sara’s two dragons melded together until a grey behemoth crawled out of the reflective surface. On the surface, the primordial dragon was a great counter to a deck like Mokuba’s that didn’t have a single Normal monster, considering it was unaffected by monster effects and unable to be destroyed in battle by anything other than a Normal monster. However, Seto hoped Sara wasn’t relying on that, as Mokuba was only a card away from turning what was currently a formidable defense into a speed bump.

Of course, Mokuba didn’t actually want to win this duel. While under normal circumstances the heart of the cards would help Mokuba get a card to bring him to victory, this time around Mokuba would be hoping for a series of dead draws. When Sara ended her turn, it seemed like he got his wish, as Seto could see he drew Cyber Phoenix. Of course, Mokuba couldn’t let Sara win either, so he still had to make a move. “I’ll summon my Cyber Valley in attack mode. Then, it seems like a waste to just let you keep Keeper of the Shrine around, so even though I know he’ll probably be back later I’m going to destroy him with my Cyber Twin Dragon. Evolution Twin Burst!”

The twin beams of plasma easily vaporized the humanoid, although no life points were lost since it had been in defense mode. With that, Mokuba ended his turn, but Sara wasn’t able to do much on her turn. She sighed as she set the card she drew in her spell and trap zone and ended her turn. Mokuba’s next turn wasn’t much better with a draw of Cyber Kirin, but he had a move he would have made in a normal duel and thus had to make now.

“I summon my Cyber Phoenix in attack mode, but it won’t stick around for long. I use Cyber Valley’s effect to banish itself and one other monster in order to draw two cards.” Mokuba’s monsters disappeared in a flash of light, allowing him to add Magnet Reverse and Limiter Removal to his hand. Seto idly wondered how many more cards Mokuba would draw that wouldn’t help him towards victory—he knew his brother’s deck was well constructed, so there weren’t that many turns he would be able to buy for Sara.

Unfortunately for the younger Kaiba, Sara didn’t seem to be able to draw anything to directly help her either. “I activate a second copy of Dragon Shrine, sending two copies of Rabidragon from my deck to my Graveyard. That’s all I can do.” Seto wondered what Sara was potentially building up to—while taking two monsters out of her deck should theoretically help her get better draws, there had to be a reason she would send her last two copies of what seemed to be her strongest monster to the Graveyard. Her whole deck seemed to be centered around dragons and Normal monsters going to the Graveyard, but hopefully there was more to it than simply bringing them back repeatedly.

Still, Sara’s strategy would only become apparent if she got a chance to use it, and it was Mokuba’s turn again. His draw of Machine Duplication was appropriately useless, so he passed his turn without incident. However, Sara must have also drawn a useless card, as she added it to her hand and passed as well. On the next turn, Seto could see Mokuba’s string of what would normally be bad luck finally ran out. While Fusion Reserve didn’t help him this turn, it put this duel on a timer. At best, Sara was getting two more turns. Mokuba set the card face down and ended his turn.

While the audience was fully aware of the significance of Mokuba’s last card, Sara didn’t have the advantage of seeing everything Mokuba drew. The sense of urgency likely would have made her move of setting another spell or trap even more disappointing. As Sara started ending her turn, Mokuba interrupted. “During your end phase, I activate my next copy of Fusion Reserve. Once again, I get to add a Cyber Dragon from my deck and Polymerization from my Graveyard to my hand.”

With everything now in place to start pushing for victory, Mokuba’s next draw of Cyber Dragon Zwei only let him save one of his cards in the Graveyard. “I’ll summon Cyber Dragon Zwei in attack mode, and then reveal my Polymerization. This activates its effect to treat its name as Cyber Dragon. Next, I activate Cybernetic Fusion Support! It may cost half of my life points to use this, but it’s worth it to let me use cards in my Graveyard as fusion materials. I banish the Cyber Dragon Zwei on the field, along with a Cyber Dragon and a Cyber Dragon Core from my graveyard, in order to summon Cyber End Dragon!”

Mokuba’s life points dropped to 1025, but the three-headed machine that reminded Seto so much of his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon roared onto the field. Of course, while the mechanical version was slightly weaker, it had the added benefit of inflicting piercing damage—and Mokuba was going to be able to inflict even more damage with his next move. “Next, I equip my Cyber End Dragon with Super Strident Blaze! With this card, you aren’t able to activate spells or traps in response to my attacks. Also, if the equipped monster battles with one of your monsters, I can banish one of my Cyber Dragons from the Graveyard in order for the equipped monster to attack a second time, as long as it attacks a monster. My other monsters can’t attack the turn I use that effect, but I haven’t been attacking with Cyber Twin Dragon anyway. Now, Cyber End Dragon, attack First of the Dragons with Eternal Evolution Burst!”

The triple blast of violet plasma washed over Sara’s dragon. While the primordial dragon was able to withstand the blast, Sara wasn’t able to move through it unscathed, dropping down to 4850 life points. Mokuba gave her a few seconds to recover, letting Seto turn his attention to a Board member who slammed his hand on the table in front of him. “That’s it, he clearly could have won there with Limiter Removal, but didn’t. Are we really going to stand for that farce?”

Another purple glow filled the stadium as Cyber End Dragon launched its second attack, but Kaiba wasn’t bothering to pay attention to the duel at the moment. “Yes, in theory Mokuba could have won at that point, but what about Sara’s two set cards? Sara may not be able to activate traps in response to attacks, but there’s still other cards she could have that would make Limiter Removal too risky to use. Just off the top of my head, if her facedown cards had been Waboku or Reverse Trap, the power boost from Limiter Removal would have been useless, and Mokuba would find himself with nothing on the field to protect him from First of the Dragons. There’s no reason for him to take that risk at this point.”

Of course, the odds that Sara’s set cards just happened to be one of those two was low enough that Mokuba playing it safe was likely the best chance Sara would get to win. With only 2850 life points left, she wouldn’t survive another pair of attacks from Cyber End Dragon. That meant everything rode on her last card, and Seto wasn’t sure things were going well when she added it to her hand instead of playing it. However, it was quickly revealed to not be as useless as he thought, as she played the other remaining card in her hand.

“I activate Card of Consonance, discarding my Rider of the Storm Winds to get two more cards.” She drew her two cards and shot a smile at Mokuba. “Well, looks like I’ll be keeping my job after all. I activate Silver’s Cry, letting me bring back one copy of Rabidragon from my Graveyard. She won’t be alone for long though, as I also activate both of my Call of the Haunted trap cards to bring back the other two Rabidragons as well. This gives me everything I need to activate Delta Attacker! If I have three Normal monsters with the same name on the field, they can attack directly for this turn. Your Cyber End Dragon can’t protect you from this—Bunny Blizzard!”

The icy blast washed over Mokuba and took away the rest of his life points, although Seto couldn’t help but be pleased with the outcome. He had gotten to see his brother duel in person, and even though Mokuba’s life points hit zero first he’d walk out of this claiming a victory. It was about time the board of directors gave the Kaiba family name the respect it deserved, and Seto was looking forward to continuing to teach that lesson.


	2. Chapter 2

A woman with graying hair slowly descended a flight of stone steps lit by torches. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes—this was her first time stepping into her teacher’s home, and she had hoped he wouldn’t have bought into the whole delusion as strongly as some of her other associates. He was already walking on thin ice when he asked to be referred to by his stage name of Mahado, but that was better than many of the other strange companions he had brought under his tutelage. Then again, considering her family name and guardian spirit, she supposed she sounded more like a cult member than the self-proclaimed demon twins.

She opened the large doors at the bottom of the stairs to step into a large circular chamber, although the torchlight here was supplemented by electronic light and a large computer setup that made this feel more like the Batcave than an ancient Egyptian chamber. However, the discussion her teacher was having with the other Egypt-obsessed member of their little club fit more with the latter

“You’ve disappointed me, Ramesses. I thought I’d made it clear that we are not to attract undue attention until the time is right. Flying to Tokyo and preaching about a new world order with an Orichalcos Stone on clear display flies in the face of that. It would have been all too easy for one of Yugi Muto’s friends to recognize the stone—or worse, if Kaiba Corporation were to discover it. We are not yet ready to defeat them at our current level of power.”

“I don’t know why you insist on hiding from the reincarnations of two pharaohs who are merely footnotes in history. You have a much better pharaoh standing before you, who can command the spirit of an Egyptian god.”

By this point, the woman had crossed the room and was standing next to the two men speaking. Once again, it seemed the so-called Pharaoh was indulging in illusions of grandeur. She couldn’t help rolling her eyes as she interjected in the conversation.

“Yes, it’s helpful that you have an Egyptian god, but then again, you only wield a little-g god. Your Dark Being pales in comparison to my Deity. Isn’t that the whole reason you’re after the big-G Egyptian Gods?”

The self-proclaimed Pharaoh shot her a withering glare, but their teacher quickly interrupted. “Speaking of which, Yako is still proving highly resistant to our combined efforts when it comes to creating the Egyptian God Cards. It seems it is too similar to past experience for him. Thus far, he’s only created a copy of The Winged Dragon of Ra. As promised, you may have this, Ramesses, but do be careful. I doubt I need to remind you that the Egyptian Gods can be quite temperamental if they do not deem the wielder worthy. Do not use this card in public yet.”

The look of greed on the man’s face as he grabbed the proffered card was impossible to ignore, and gave the woman an idea of why she had been called down in the first place. The man who called himself Ramesses quickly said his goodbyes and walked out of the room. The two remaining people waited until the door had closed before starting their own conversation.

“Let me guess, you called me here to make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid again?”

“That’s correct, Evelyn I’ll need someone to keep a closer eye on him, and despite Jamaal’s usefulness in other areas, I can’t trust him with something like this. Perhaps it’s nothing, but just in case, we may need to stop him from disclosing anything. I would prefer incapacitated to dead if possible—losing the power of Reshef would be a setback to our plans.”

Evelyn rolled her eyes. “Maybe a setback to your plans, but it’s not like I have any personal stake in whether or not Yako sticks around. I already had all the cards I needed before this started. And before you ask, no, I won’t be adding Divine Serpent Geh to my deck. I am perfectly happy with my own snakes, so I won’t be taking any leftovers—especially from someone who wasn’t able to handle the power of the Seal of Orichalcos. Maybe you should have done a little bit more of a screening process on the recruits.

* * *

Seto sighed as he glanced toward his door. Even though he was only the CEO Emeritus instead of the true CEO, there was still plenty of work he found he could do to help Mokuba run Kaiba Corporation. It had been years since he had worked under someone, and this was the first time he had actually liked his superior. Still, despite the work he had to do, he had a more important meeting coming up—and Yugi was running late. If it were purely work related, Seto might have been annoyed at the delay, but considering this was mainly a personal call he couldn’t blame Yugi for focusing more on his work.

Just as he was about to try and finish a couple more emails, Seto heard a knock on the door. If nothing else, at least Yugi was more polite than most of his entourage. When Seto signaled for him to enter, Yugi stepped in and bowed his head. However, Seto was more focused on the translucent duel spirit that entered behind him—apparently Yugi had picked up a Winged Kuriboh somewhere along the way. In some ways it was a good way to bring up a future topic, but Seto still wasn’t a fan of the fuzzball-like monster even if he respected it more than he did previously.

However, if Yugi noticed he had a follower he didn’t let it show. “Sorry for being late, Kaiba. I got a little bit caught up in tweaking some of the rules to my latest game. What would you like to talk about?”

Seto did his best to also ignore the duel spirit. “Since you bring it up, your game was one of the topics I’d like to discuss, and the only one that’s directly business related. I’ve looked through your design notes and I’m really looking forward to getting a chance to play it. I would recommend working with the marketing department to find a good name when it is ready to release though—Sphere works fine as a prototype, but we’ll need to find something better when we actually sell it.”

Yugi’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’re serious? Everyone was going on and on about how difficult it was to impress you when you were in charge, so I wasn’t even going to assume you would sell the game. I mean, I’ve had high hopes for it, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready for this level yet.”

Seto smirked. “I’ll let the attitude slide since I know you still think you’re just some random kid who lucked into your position, but don’t forget that you’ve earned the title of King of Games. And I can pass on some of Atem’s advice—when you’re the king, you can’t afford to let people see you doubt your ability.”

Yugi’s eyes lit up. “How is Atem doing? Mokuba mentioned you met , but he hasn’t really talked about anything that happened while you were away. I wanted to ask you right away, but it was pretty obvious you needed some space to process things.”

Seto stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Yes, my withdrawing from society clearly meant I wanted some space. However, Atem is doing rather well. He seemed excited to finally be back with his friends and family from the ancient past, although he was also exceptionally proud of you. He’s glad to see you standing on your own and making your own name instead of only following in his footsteps. He also seems to have grown quite a bit—at least, he’s much better about accepting defeat. I managed to beat him in the fifth duel of a best of five match, and he was able to joke that he wasn’t going to knock me off of a building for it.”

“Wait, he was willing to joke about that? We never liked talking about that—or really any of the times when we weren’t on the same page. Once we hashed it out, we tried to put all of that in the past.”

Seto blinked. “Well, for the first months I was there he was the only person I could talk with, considering I only spoke Japanese and English, and the modern dialects of each language weren’t exactly around when Atem was ruling Egypt. Until I learned to speak Egyptian, I was rather reliant on him, so he’d often make jokes at my expense. I guess that’s the difference between us—to you, he was introduced as another version of yourself, whereas to me he was always a rival first. He may have been the closest thing I had to a friend, but I won’t say we were actually friends until that time passed.”

“Well, around the time of the Orichalcos mess, our group had pretty much upgraded you from ‘ally of necessity’ to ‘friend’, so I don’t know if you can really say—”

“You may have viewed me as a friend, but I certainly didn’t deserve the title. I certainly didn’t view your group as friends.” Seto heaved a sigh as he let the next painful words cross his lips. “I would like your help with that, Yugi. I know I haven’t exactly been the most welcoming of people. I also know I have no idea how to actually go about making or keeping friends. I know it’s going to take some time and it’s a huge favor to ask of you, but before you say anything know that I have other favors I’m going to need to ask of you and I’d like you to hear them all before you agree to anything. First, is it true that you can see Duel Monster spirits?”

Yugi looked confused but nodded for Kaiba to continue. Seto pulled out his deck and started searching through it, finding a dragon that could reasonably fit in his office and placing the card face-down on his desk before placing his hand over it. “I’m able to see them now too, but I’ve been noticing something weird and I’m not sure who to ask about it. I know that it’s much easier to see your own monsters than anybody else’s, so would you mind telling me what monster this card represents? I need to see if you’d actually be able to help me with this.”

Seto reached out to the spirit of his Decoy Dragon card, causing the small blue dragon to appear in its ethereal form in the office. Almost immediately, it and the Winged Kuriboh started playing together, which made it difficult to tell if Yugi’s eyes were actually following the dragon or just his own monster. However, after a few seconds Yugi spoke up. “Okay, I’m pretty sure I faced this monster in the last world championship—it’s the one that summons a high-level dragon from the Graveyard and redirects attacks to the summoned monster. What was it called, Decoy Dragon?”

Kaiba smiled and flipped over the card, revealing that Yugi had been correct. With that test out of the way, it was time to get to the main question. “Have you ever had a chance to see someone Synchro Summon any monster?”

Yugi shook his head. “No—at least, not outside of a hazy memory that may or may not be real. It’s either something I made up or time travel was involved, so I’m not putting too much weight on the memory. Outside of that, the only person I know who has any Synchro Monsters is Rebecca, and I haven’t dueled her since she added them to her deck a couple months ago.”

Seto sighed—of course getting direct confirmation would be too easy. “Okay, if you ever get a chance, please pay attention when one is summoned. I brushed it off when Rebecca summoned Ancient Fairy Dragon, since that monster apparently is a divine being. When it happened again when a Kaiba Corporation employee summoned a different Synchro Monster, however, I started to get worried.”

Yugi was clearly confused. “Why? What’s so different about Synchro Summoning?”

Seto sighed again. “This might be easier with a small demonstration. Since that Winged Kuriboh is following you around, I’m assuming you have the card on you. May I borrow it for a minute?”

Yugi reached into his pocket and pulled out the card. “No problem. It’s hard to think of this card as really mine though. I can tell it’s destined to end up with someone else, but it wants to spend some time with me first.”

Considering Ancient Fairy Dragon had said much of the same thing, this news didn’t shock Seto as much as he supposed it should have. He grabbed the offered card and started the work of physically manifesting the spirit. Seto felt a few beads of sweat form on his face as he started marshalling all of his latent magical energy. Summoning monsters had come easily to him in the afterlife, as usually it involved the sorcerer using his own magic to mold the ambient magic around him to bring his chosen spirit to life. In the afterlife, magic was so prevalent that anything short of the Egyptian Gods was fairly easy to summon. On Earth, there was no ambient magic left, meaning everything had to come from within Seto. Luckily, the Kuriboh family of monsters was fairly weak and thus easy to summon. To someone of Seto Kaiba’s skill and determination, it didn’t take long for the fuzzball to fully materialize in his office.

Seto felt the cool sparks of magic trickle down his hand to sink into the card. He used the card as an anchor point to focus his search—then, he turned the magic outward and called. Summoning monsters had come easily to him in the afterlife, but that had involved using his own magic simply to mold the ambient magic of the world. On Earth, there was no magic left.

Seto monitored the drain on his energy carefully. He felt a few beads of sweat form on his face as he directed the energy farther and father, and he felt a surge of triumph as he heard a curious trill. The Kuriboh spirit connected with his magic, and Seto let loose one final surge to finish the summoning. Luckily, the Kuriboh family of monsters was fairly weak and easy to summon, and within seconds, the fuzzball had fully materialized in Seto’s office.

Seto saw Yugi shiver lightly as he reached out to pet the suddenly corporeal monster. “That feeling in the air… is that part of the summoning, or is it a consequence of you using it? It almost feels like the Shadow Realm, but that doesn’t make any sense. The Shadow Realm should have been locked away for good once Zorc was destroyed.”

Seto smirked. “I hoped you would be able to feel that. You only thought that felt like the Shadow Realm because that’s the magic you are most familiar with dealing with, considering you were the bearer of a Millennium Item. When you are exposed to new magic, your brain tries to find a pattern so it can understand it. In theory, due to your history, you would be able to grasp magic much more easily than I did—but that won’t help much now. While I could try to teach you how to harness it, there’s not any ambient magic left on Earth. It would be like trying to learn how to swim without having any water. But the fact that you are able to feel it when someone accesses magic means you’ll be able to help me. The past two times I’ve been around a Synchro Summon, it has released a burst of ambient magic into the air. I’d like your help to see if I’m imagining things, or if there could be something dangerous about this new summoning method.” 

Yugi let out a sigh. “Here I was hoping things would finally stay peaceful,” he said ruefully. “Can I at least get some pointers on what it feels like to summon a duel spirit? If there really is a flood of magical energy when this summon happens, and someone finds a way to use that to their advantage, I’d like to at least have something I can try to use as a way to defend myself.”

Seto paused for a second as he tried to think of the best way to explain it. “It’s like bringing forth a duel spirit, just more intense. Instead of asking for the monster to come, you are reaching out and letting it use you as a focal point to rip its way into your dimension. Do you remember what it felt like when Atem would use your body to call forth Shadow Games? When I was initially learning how to access magic, the Pharaoh Seto claimed it felt almost exactly like that, although obviously I had no context for how to call forth Shadow Games.”

Yugi looked like he was about to respond, but then Seto’s phone started to ring. The former CEO glanced at the number to see it was Mokuba calling before turning back to Yugi. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to take this. I know you’ll be flying out to America this upcoming weekend, so we can go into more detail when you get back.”

Yugi nodded. “Sounds good. I’m looking forward to getting a chance to know you better, Kaiba.” 

* * *

Joey adjusted his backpack as he hurried through the Tokyo streets. Growing up, he had always dreamed of being able to come and go freely in Tokyo, but things had changed over the years. The main draws of the city then were the thoughts of getting away from his alcoholic father and being close enough to visit his sister—assuming she stayed close to their mom and the money problems that plagued their family went away.

That was all before he became one of the top-ranked professional duelists in the world. Now, his family wasn’t hurting for money, and Joey found he enjoyed living in Domino. People there knew him for who he really was, rather than only a celebrity.

Of course, Joey didn’t exactly regret his life choices. The only thing he regretted was the scene he caused last year when he went to visit Serenity in school on a day that just so happened to be Valentine’s Day. While the hoard of chocolates he had received from just about every female in class had been nice, he knew they had originally been meant for other people. He had gotten quite a lot of glares when he came back for White’s Day, and he made sure to give a small gift of chocolate and a signed Swordsman of Landstar to every class member as a token of apology that year. This year, he made sure to schedule a visit earlier, while still having a bunch of signed copies of Baby Dragon to hand out so nobody who happened to be absent last year would feel left out.

Joey was just prepared to cut through a nearby alley when his phone started ringing. He glanced at the name in surprise before picking up. “Hi Mai, what’s going on? Not that I’m not happy to talk to you, but isn’t it like six A.M. where you are? I know you’re not a morning person.”

“Well, as the recently crowned European regional champion, I was planning on sleeping in and enjoying my lovely luxury suite for a couple more days, but then I happened to get a text message from a lovely damsel in distress. Apparently, there’s a relatively normal girl in Tokyo who has to deal with a crazily overprotective brother who just so happens to ruin Valentine’s Day by showing his recently famous face around her school. As someone of the strong belief that every day is Valentine’s Day, I couldn’t let such a travesty stand. You wouldn’t happen to be able to stop someone like that from doing something so stupid, would you?”

Joey just chuckled. “Okay, there’s no way you woke up early for that, if only because Serenity is more considerate than I am and even I wouldn’t text you this early in the morning. So, clearly you had something like this planned ahead of time. Why did you decide to call now?”

“Fine, you got me. Somebody pulled the fire alarm in the hotel, so I was scrolling through some social media and saw a bunch of people claiming they saw Joey Wheeler in Tokyo. Based on the call Serenity and I had last week, I figured this was a good chance to stop you from doing something stupid.”

“Hey, the whole reason I’m here today is so I don’t ruin Valentine’s Day again this year. I figured it was best to get it out of people’s systems, so nobody tries to get close to Serenity just to get close to me.”

“You ever realize by trying to cut off that behavior you’re actually making it worse? I’m proud of you for not being the whole ‘I’ll kill anybody who touches my sister’ type anymore, but if you wave your fame in everyone’s face, they’ll feel just as threatened. I know she’s your little sister, so you want to protect her from all the boys out there, but do you really want Serenity to spend the rest of her life alone?”

Joey sighed. “Of course not! The whole reason I was doing this was to try and send the message that I’m not trying to scare everyone away. But I guess that’s not what I’m doing. Since you’re clearly so much wiser than I am when it comes to matters like this, how do you suggest—”

Before Joey could finish his sentence, he heard an all too familiar nasally voice interrupt him. “Well, what do you know, it’s Wheeler. I guess today’s really my lucky day. I challenge you to a duel!”

Joey just rolled his eyes at Rex Raptor’s latest intrusion. “Buzz off, Dino-breath. I’m having an important conversation here. Besides, I’m a national champion and you haven’t been in any qualifying tournaments since Battle City. Why should I bother dueling you?”

Joey half expected a tantrum from the shorter duelist, but he was taken aback by the look of hurt that crossed Rex’s eyes. The dinosaur duelist’s eyes then shifted to a resolved glare that closely resembled how he looked when he had played the Seal of Orichalcos before he snarled out his response.

“Fine then, I guess I’ll just walk away. I guess you’re not interested in hearing about the guy waving brandishing an Orichalcos stone and claiming to be a reincarnated pharaoh promising a new world order. I thought you were the expert on the saving the world stuff, but I guess you’re just too important for that now.”

Joey glared right back at the former owner of his Red-Eyes. “Do you really expect me to believe you? Just because a crazy guy waves around a green rock doesn’t mean it’s anything dangerous.”

Rex shivered. “Believe me, I wish I was lying. You never used the power of the Orichalcos. Once you have, you’re never able to forget that feeling. That was definitely an Orichalcos stone.”

Joey was about to respond when he heard a distant voice speaking to him. Realizing it was coming from his phone, he put it back up to his ear. “Sorry Mai, I didn’t quite hear that. What did you say?”

“I said Rex was right. You don’t want to know what it felt like when I was chasing down Dartz after you lost your soul to the Orichalcos. It’s like a constant electricity in the presence of the stones. Whatever Rex is going on about, that stone must have been real.”

Joey took a deep breath to try and combat the headache this was quickly turning out to be. “Fine, I guess I’ll have to take this. I’ll call you back later, Mai.” If Rex was willing to give the information after a duel, that would probably be the quickest way to track down this Orichalcos Stone. It’s not like Rex was anywhere near his league anymore. Besides, if the dinosaur user was actually trying to turn his life around Joey wasn’t going to stop someone else from having the same opportunity Yugi gave him years ago. Joey reached into his backpack and pulled out his new duel disk. Having such close connections to the upper management at KaibaCorp made it so much easier to get the new, far more portable version of the duel disk slightly before it was available to the general public. He activated the hard-light display and readied his deck, only to see Rex wasn’t in any way ready to duel.

“What gives, Raptor? Hurry up and get out your duel disk so I can beat you and find out everything you know about this supposed Orichalcos user.” 

Joey never expected Rex to look sheepish. “I’d get out my duel disk if I had one, but I had to sell mine a couple of months back. Besides, I never said you had to beat me in a duel for me to tell you anything. Not that I’m really expecting to win, but even if I do, I’ll give you everything I have.”

Joey just blinked. “Wait, what? Why the whole ‘challenge me to a duel’ thing if you aren’t planning on having the result mean anything?”

Rex rolled his eyes. “Listen you don’t know how bad my life got after I lost to you.” Joey opened his mouth, but Rex quickly waived him off. “And don’t give me the whole speech about how that’s my own fault. I finally got around to realizing that. Sure, you knocked me off of the pedestal I was on, but I’m the one who jumped at the chance to drag myself lower. I’m finally taking some steps to turn my life around, and I just got what might be my best opportunity. I’m working down at the community college, and I’ve befriended one of the professors there. Due to some idiot deciding to treat a kid’s broken leg by transplanting a dinosaur bone, a lot of spots opened up on a dinosaur dig, and I got invited to go since the travel was non-refundable.”

Joey nodded. “Hey man, good for you. I know what it’s like to need to turn your life around, and I hope you enjoy the dig. Still, what does that have to do with dueling me?”

Rex snorted. “Honestly, things seem to be going too well. I want to prove to myself that I’ve earned that, and I figure that if I can duel against you without hating you that will show some real progress. So, how about we head into that coffee shop and duel?”

Joey just shook his head. “Sorry, Rex, but if I’m going to duel you, I want it to be the full experience. There’s a duel arena close by, and I’m sure I’ll be able to find a way to open up a slot for us.”

* * *

As Joey expected, all it took was a few autographs and the promise that the duel would be quick for the kids who had a slot reserved to let him and Rex use the duel arena. It had been a while since he had dueled using anything other than a duel disk, so it felt almost like he was standing back in Duelist Kingdom facing Rex for the first time. Of course, this time around it was Rex who was the massive underdog, and Joey knew just how dangerous it could be to underestimate a duelist like that.

Of course, his deck seemed to respond to his wariness by giving him a strong opening hand, with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Summoned Skull, and Red-Eyes Insight. While from the start he didn’t have a monster he could summon, that didn’t matter with Red-Eyes Insight giving him access to Red-Eyes Fusion.

Still, since he was the clear favorite to win the duel, Joey thought he would let Rex make the first move. The dinosaur duelist drew his first card before starting his turn. “Alright, Wheeler, let’s get this show on the road. I’ll start by discarding my Destroyersaurus, which lets me add Jurassic World to my hand. Then I’ll activate it, which will boost the attack and defense of all Dinosaurs by 300 points!”

Rex’s field spell caused a lush jungle to appear in the arena, with a volcano prominently rising out of the background. Of course, the scenery was nowhere near as important as the other moves Rex would make. “Now, I summon my Gilasaurus! As I’m sure you remember, I can treat the summon of this card as a Special Summon, although doing so lets you summon a monster from your Graveyard. Since your Graveyard is empty, I can do it for free. Just be glad I only have one this time around.”

The giant raptor appeared on Rex’s field, although Joey was relieved to not be facing a whole pack of them like he had when Rex had played the Seal of Orichalcos.

“Don’t get too used to seeing my monster. I sacrifice it in order to activate the spell card, Big Evolution Pill! This card will be destroyed on your third end phase, but as long as it’s active I can Normal Summon a Dinosaur monster without making a tribute. Say hello to my Black Tyranno!”

The velociraptor suddenly turned black and grew in size, becoming a tyrannosaurus while three red pills appeared behind it. Joey stared down the ancient reptile, which at 2900 attack points was stronger than anything in his hand. Still, it wasn’t too strong to handle. He was careful not to react, and Rex didn’t seem to have a clue as he continued his turn. “Don’t think you’ll be able to defend yourself from my monster. If you control only defense position monsters, my Black Tyranno can attack directly. So, I’ll place one card face down, and then end my turn.”

Joey drew Red-Eyes Fang with Chain, which might be helpful later, but he wasn’t expecting Rex to be able to keep multiple monsters on his field to be able to use it anyway. “I’ll start off by activating Red-Eyes Insight discarding my Red-Eyes Black Flare Dragon in order to add Red-Eyes Fusion from my deck to my hand. I’ll then activate it immediately, sending Summoned Skull and Red-Eyes Black Dragon from my deck to the Graveyard in order to summon Archfiend Black Skull Dragon!”

The fusion monster appeared in a burst of hellfire, causing Rex’s tyrannosaur to roar back in defiance. Of course, no amount of defiance could save a duel monster in a typical duel. Joey set Red-Eyes Fang with Chain before moving to his Battle Phase. “Skull Dragon, I think it’s about time you remind our friend here that he’s supposed to be extinct. Demonic Inferno!” The undead dragon launched a meteor of obsidian at Rex’s Black Tyranno, obliterating it and taking away 300 of Rex’s life points. Of course, that was far from the end of the damage Joey was about to inflict.

“Now that the damage step is over, I can activate my Archfiend’s special ability. By shuffling the Red-Eyes Black Dragon in my Graveyard back into my deck, I inflict damage equal to its attack points!” Archfiend Black Skull Dragon flew up to Rex and plunged its hand into the ground, glowing with cursed fire. A second later, it slashed upward across Rex, leaving a trail of flames and the ghostly image of Red-Eyes Black Dragon as it burned Rex’s life points down to 5300. As soon as Rex recovered, Joey set his Red-Eyes Fang with Chain and ended his turn, causing one of the pills on Rex’s field to fade away.

Rex drew his next card and smirked across the field. “You and Yugi were always going on about the Heart of the Cards, right? Well, it looks like my deck and I are finally on the same page. I summon Super Conductor Tyranno!” A massive green tyrannosaur that dwarfed even Joey’s dragon roared into existence, with arcs of lightning joining sections of its silver and purple armor. Joey couldn’t believe that something that easy to summon would have 3300 attack points normally—and with the effect of Jurassic World that number was even higher.

Joey didn’t have anything at the moment that could save his monster, so he was forced to helplessly watch as Rex called out, “Teravolt Terror!” The arcs of electricity that had been jumping along the armor of Rex’s monster all shot forward at once, cutting right through Joey’s dragon and slicing it to pieces. The attack only cost Joey 400 life points, but he still grimaced. While he still had a lot of potential in his hand, he’d need to draw something he could play that would actually help him take advantage of it. Rex ended his turn, giving Joey the chance he needed to regain the momentum in the duel.

He drew his next card and smiled. All he had really needed was a level 4 or lower Dragon-type monster, and this fit the bill. “I summon my Black Stone of Legend! And while this egg has some nice effects, I’m not going to be making use of them. Instead, I’ll be banishing it in order to Special Summon Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon from my hand!” The red egg seemed to petrify, turning into a metal sphere that soon shattered to reveal the armored dragon. While powerful in its own right, it was still not a match for Rex’s dinosaur—although that would soon become irrelevant.

Joey couldn’t help the excited tone that crossed his voice. “Now, this new variant of the Red-Eyes might be easier to summon and have better stats, but it still doesn’t quite hold the same memories as the original version. Of course, since my Metal Dragon can special summon one dragon from my hand or graveyard per turn, that won’t matter long. I special summon my Red-Eyes Black Dragon!”

Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon spread its wings, and its armor started gleaming into a perfect, reflective surface. The mirror-like finish was soon besmirched by an image of Joey’s favorite monster, which flew out of the reflective portal and roared at its former owner.

Rex gave Joey a flat look. “Is that actually the same copy of Red-Eyes that you won from me, or is it one of the duplicates you added to your deck later? And apart from the trip down memory lane, what are you trying to accomplish summoning two monsters that are weaker than mine?”

Joey smirked. “This is the original one from Duelist Kingdom—and I wouldn’t be so sure that these are weaker than your monster. In fact, I wouldn’t be so sure you even have a monster. I activate my trap card, Red-Eyes Fang with Chain, and equip it to my Red-Eyes Black Dragon. But it won’t be sticking around for long, since I’ll be using its effect to send it to the Graveyard and replace it with one effect monster on the field as an Equip spell. So, I’ll be borrowing your T-rex for a bit.”

The black chain shot out and wrapped around Rex’s monster, dragging it over to Joey’s side of the field where it became fully anchored down, with only a loop of chain connecting it to the leg of Red-Eyes Black Dragon. This brought the dragon’s attack up to 3300 and left Rex without a monster to defend himself. He still had the one facedown card, so Joey knew he wasn’t completely defenseless. However, it was still time to attempt to go for a game-ending blow.

“Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon, attack Rex directly with Darkness Metal Flare!” Just like the original Red-Eyes Black Metal Dragon, the updated version’s attack took the form of a ball of pink plasma that slammed into Rex and knocked him down to 2500 life points. Since Red-Eyes Black Dragon had the powerup from Rex’s Super Conductor Tyranno, that meant Rex was one attack from losing—if he didn’t do anything.

Of course, despite his history, Joey knew Rex was too proud to not give the match his all. Sure enough, the dinosaur duelist activated his next card. “I’m not going down that easily. I activate my trap, Survival Instinct! Just because some dinosaurs die doesn’t mean they’ll let themselves go extinct! By banishing dinosaurs from my graveyard, I gain 400 life points for each.” The ghostly images of Rex’s Destroyersaurus, Gilasaurus, and Black Tyranno surrounded Rex, lending him their strength and bringing him up to 3700 life points. It was just enough for him to be able to withstand what came next. Joey’s Red-Eyes Black Dragon began charging a fireball. Lightning raced up the chain connecting it to Super Conductor Tyranno, increasing its destructive power. The blast sent Rex to 400 life points, but that was enough to buy him another turn. Joey ended his turn, and the second of Rex’s Big Evolution Pills faded away at the end phase.

Rex drew his next card and shook his head. “Well, looks like what I said about dinosaurs is going to come true in more ways than one. I activate the spell card, Fossil Dig! This lets me add one level 6 or lower Dinosaur-type monster from my deck to my hand. And I can tell you, you aren’t going to like what gets dug up.” Different colored figures, which Joey recognized as identical to the monsters in the -itsu series of Union monsters, started an excavation on the field. Suddenly, there was a massive burst of purple energy, and another tyrannosaur burst out of the ground. It lunged forward and ate the four diggers. The T-Rex was coated in a shimmering purple aura, and it couldn’t seem to stay still, pacing back and forth on Rex’s field.

“Say hello to my Tyranno Infinity! He may only be level 4, but don’t discount his potential. His original attack increases by 1000 for each banished Dinosaur monster, and combined with Jurassic World that gives him 3300 attack points. That might put him as only equal to your Black Dragon, but he’s more than a match for your Darkness Metal Dragon. Attack with Eternal Extinction!” Tyranno Infinity seemed to disappear, leaving only a faint trail of purple light. Joey’s dragon exploded, and only then was he able to make out the form of the attack as Rex’s dinosaur finally slowed down to a speed where Joey could actually see it.

After the attack finished, Rex shook his head and sighed. “Well, that’s all I can do this turn. Which means you’ll win if you can summon something with 400 attack points this turn. So, are you going to have to draw something to do that, or is this duel already basically over?”

Joey smiled. “Well, normally this would count as table talk, but it would be pretty obvious anyway. I don’t have something I can summon yet, so I will need to draw.” He drew his card and shrugged. “Well, not exactly what I was thinking I would get to end the duel, but it still works. I activate Inferno Fire Blast, letting me deal 2400 damage to your life points. Red-Eyes, take it home.”

Joey’s dragon seemed to take pity on its former owner, as the fireball it launched was smaller than usual. It still knocked Rex’s life points to zero, and the former tournament duelist just grabbed his deck and walked over to Joey.

“Well, I can’t say I’m happy with the result, but I’m not freaking out over losing to you again, so I’ll count that as a positive. I don’t have much to give you on this guy, since I’m pretty sure he isn’t actually named Ramesses like he claimed.He had a British accent, and I also managed to get his picture. I’ll send you a copy, and maybe that will help you track him down.”

Joey nodded. Considering the quality of the camera on Rex’s phone, it would probably take some supercomputer to be able to pull any sort of facial recognition. Even in that case, they would need a massive database to compare it with in order to find something. A couple of years ago that would have been a simple request for the Kaiba brothers, but now they would need to go a little bit further than that. Luckily, Joey just so happened to know someone who could hack their way into just about anything, so they’d be able to track down this lead to see if there truly was a resurgence of the Orichalcos.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara hopes to relax after her latest job troubles, only to receive some new cards that hint at something sinister going on.
> 
> Rebecca runs into far more dangerous cards on a family trip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, forgot to put a summary for the last chapter. Oops.
> 
> Major thanks to Quinnec for helping me re-do the opening scene to make Sara feel much more alive than my first few attempts.

Sara sighed as she unlocked the door to her one-bedroom apartment. She trudged through the doorway, awkwardly juggling her phone, a package, and her knock-off designer purse. After a long moment, she finally managed to kick the door shut behind her and sighed deeply. “I don’t know what to do, Melody. Another few days of this, and I’ll lose my mind.”

“I’m so sorry, Sara,” her friend said. A staticky sigh came through the speaker. “You have the worst luck in the world.”

Sara groaned. “Tell me about it. I can’t hold a job for more than a year. How the hell am I supposed to boost my resumé if all of my bosses have a nervous breakdown?”

A long silence hung in the air. Sara dumped her purse and the package on the faux-granite countertop, then bent down to remove her white pumps, wobbling a bit as she balanced on one foot. She groaned when her bare feet made contact with the cool kitchen floor, soothing the ache in her arches.

“You’re not looking for a new job again, are you?” Melody asked cautiously.

“No,” Sara sighed. “No, not yet. I’m just sick of fielding questions about why I was escorted out. Benji won’t leave it alone. Plus,” she hesitated. “Plus, I’m not sure what to do about the Kaiba brothers.”

“Oh?” Melody sounded surprised. “I thought they helped save your job.”

“Yeah,” Sara huffed, “with a children’s card game!”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love that game, Sara! You almost had a stroke when you thought you lost your deck in Akihabara.”

“I did not!”

“I practically had to carry you out of that figurine shop.”

“Okay, fine. You win,” Sara groaned. “Still, the KaibaCorp Board of Directors has it out for me, and the only people standing between my career and a nuclear explosion are a teenaged CEO and hot gamer hermit!”

“Hey, at least he’s hot!”

“ _Melody,_ that’s not _helping._ ”

Sara switched the phone to speaker mode and set it on the island as Melody cackled loudly. She felt a smile tug at her lips, grateful she’d thought to call her friend after the rough day, despite the time difference. She poured herself a glass of strawberry wine while waiting for Melody’s mirth to fade, and then moved the phone to her sofa’s arm. She snuggled down into the plush blue cushions, grabbing a pillow to cuddle.

“You done yet?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m done,” Melody snickered.

“So. Kaiba brothers. What do I do?”

Sara could practically hear Melody’s shrug. “Well, they’re your bosses, right? Just treat them the same way you would any of your other bosses. So what if they took a special interest in you? The kid’s too young to try anything, and Mr. Hot Gamer Hermit doesn’t come out in public anymore. If nothing else, it could be good for your career. Schmooze a little. Network.”

“Ugh, yeah, you’re right,” Sara said. “I’m overthinking this.”

“Hey,” Melody said softly, “there’s nothing wrong with being a little trigger shy after your last few jobs. But the Kaibas have stuck their necks out for you so far. Maybe this job will stick.”

“Maybe,” Sara said. She took a sip of her wine and swirled the glass, watching the pink color whirl.

“Listen,” Melody said. “I have an eleven o’clock meeting starting soon. But text me if you need me, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks for listening, Melody.”

“Any time, Sara. Bye.”

“Bye,” Sara said. She hit the end call button and slumped back on the couch.

Still, it wouldn’t really do her any good to dwell on a couple of bad days at work and let that bleed into the rest of her life. Besides, she had something else to look forward to today. She was surprised to find a fairly thick envelope in her mail today, but the Russian postmark made it a pleasant shock. While it wasn’t directly addressed to her from Yako, it wasn’t like she knew anybody in Russia other than her brother. She and Yako were probably the closest among their family, with the exception of Gekko and Yako who had been family before Pegasus had taken them in. While they didn’t usually send each other anything, she was looking forward to seeing what he had thought to send her.

After sitting down at her table, she opened the envelope only to pull out a thick plastic case with Duel Monster cards inside. Originally all she could see was the back of the stack of cards, but on turning the case over she gasped in shock. The pose was different—resembling her Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon—but the card she was staring at was undoubtedly a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Taking the card out of the case, she saw an identical one behind it—and then another one behind that. She set the cards down and couldn’t help but stare. The package had come from Industrial Illusions, meaning the cards were legitimate—and she now owned three copies of the most recognizable duel monster in existence.

She spent about a minute coming to terms with this information, and had to work to banish a bit of fear that crept into her. If Seto Kaiba had just worked to save her job, it wasn’t likely that he’d turn around and do something horrible to get his hands on these dragons…right? Surely those stories about how he had obtained the (at the time) only three intact copies of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon had to be just rumors. There should be no problem adding these new cards to her deck, especially since they fit so well with her current strategy.

Once she was over the shock of having the Blue-Eyes, she looked at the next card in the case and found the level one Tuner monster The White Stone of Legend. With an effect that would let her add a Blue-Eyes to her hand if the monster ever went to the graveyard, it was better than the other Tuners she currently employed, and it was still a target for Card of Consonance. As soon as that thought crossed her mind, she pulled out her own deck and found Card of Consonance, inspecting the artwork. She realized that this White Stone of Legend must have been planned for some time, as the card being discarded on the artwork of Card of Consonance matched this new card. Everyone had just assumed it was a generic representation, but it must have been based on the concept art for this new card.

Sara took out the three copies of The White Stone of Legend before seeing the next card in the pile and dropping the case in shock. Receiving the Blue-Eyes had been completely unexpected, but pleasant. This next card was anything but. She didn’t even need to read the card’s name or text, as the picture revealed everything. It wasn’t often you saw yourself reflected in trading card form, especially in that outfit. Being adopted by Pegasus had many perks—after all, not many adoptive fathers would let their kids build out an entire castle to hold some of the best games of capture the flag ever—but it also came with some drawbacks.

As a rather…eccentric…artist, Pegasus often would find inspiration in the strangest places, and sometimes needed people to serve as models to ensure he captured his vision. It usually wasn’t too terrible, but Sara’s absolute least favorite time was when she had to model as some sort of ancient priestess. While Yako and Gekko hadn’t complained too much about their outfits, Sara just couldn’t get comfortable in hers. Because of that, Pegasus couldn’t get a painting to his satisfaction, which meant he would just try again later. When the painting was finally finished, everyone referred to it as Sara’s cry for help—and that made seeing it in card form more worrisome.

Sara immediately called her brother, but only managed to get his voicemail. With no other options, she sent a text out to Gekko and Pegasus. It was around two in the morning in California, so it was pointless to try calling, but as soon as morning hit, she would find out if they had heard from Yako recently. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong, and if she was right whoever was responsible would find out just what happened when they messed with her family.

* * *

Rebecca groaned as she looked at the clock and saw it was five in the morning. She would have thought with all the travelling she had been doing recently, she’d be more used to time zone differences, but it still took her a couple of nights to switch her internal clock from Eastern to Pacific time. She didn’t even have any work with her that she could do over the next few hours, as this was more of a social trip—while Grandpa had work reasons to talk with Rebecca’s godfather, she was just along for the visit. Robert had been one of her dad’s closest friends, and was practically a member of the family.

With nothing else to do, she started scrolling through messages on her phone, finding a message from Mokuba. It obviously wasn’t as high of a priority, since her phone hadn’t gone off while she was sleeping—she and Mokuba had a system set up to help with the massive time zone differences against emergency communications—but she was still interested to see what he might have sent her. On opening it, she saw it was sent to both her and Yugi, which immediately raised her suspicions. Sure enough, the message had a picture attached, with the question on if either Yugi or Rebecca had any way of knowing who the man in the picture was.

It was fairly innocuous on the surface, but that was the entire point. You couldn’t go keeping an illegal trove of personal information secret by blatantly talking about it. As far as the world was concerned, all of the data that Kaiba Corporation had on people the world over had been deleted and was gone forever. Of course, what the world didn’t know was that the data was all but impossible to delete as long as the Kaiba Corporation mainframe existed, as there were so many redundancies built in that it would take destroying the whole mainframe just to eliminate it. Rather than take that extreme, Rebecca had merely gotten the data secured by scrambling it so much that it would take the best computers available a few centuries to crack her encryption. If you happened to know how to undo her work, you would then find yourself facing six factors of authentication needed to finally be able to use the information.

That last measure had been an idea proposed by Mokuba himself when Rebecca had revealed the situation. While having all of that data was helpful in an emergency—after all, they had only been able to force Diva to join the tournament thanks to their technological advantage—it was a ridiculous amount of power. Mokuba had worried that much power would corrupt any one person, so he devised a way to make sure it needed more than one person to access it. Now, it was only possible to access the data if Mokuba, Rebecca, and Yugi all entered a password and provided a second factor of authentication at a Kaiba Corporation terminal. For Rebecca, this factor was her Ties of Friendship card, which was one-of-a-kind yet had no real value for people to try stealing it. She was sure everyone else owned something similar.

Of course, none of that vast wealth of information would be helpful until Rebecca was able to access it, and she was a bit disconnected from her usual resources at a hotel in the California desert. Still, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do, so she opened the image attached to the message. As soon as it loaded, she dropped her phone in shock. She really hoped it was a coincidence—or just her mind playing tricks on her—but she could recognize the man in the photo without needing to check anything else. And if the man really was who she thought she was, that meant she’d be talking with him soon. Hopefully, it was just a mistake and it wasn’t actually her godfather in the picture. And even if it was him, he might be just under someone’s control—it had certainly happened before, right?

Still, Rebecca couldn’t help but nervously pull out her deck and start sorting through the cards. Part of her wanted to wake her Grandpa up right now and get back on the road to get to her godfather’s house sooner, but another part didn’t want to panic over something that might not even be true. She knew she should let him sleep in, but now it was difficult to focus on anything. Going through her cards helped give her something to focus on, even if she hoped she wouldn’t have to use them in the near future…

With the worry eating away at Rebecca, she hadn’t been able to enjoy the morning. At the very least, her grandfather felt the same sense of urgency she had when she told him the story, so they had ended up checking out of the hotel earlier than they originally planned. After the half-hour ride spent in tense silence, they were finally pulling up the driveway of Robert’s desert home. Rebecca had to shield her eyes from the rising sun as they pulled up, but that didn’t last for long as the sky immediately clouded over in a thunderstorm. Before she could even comment on anything, a massive bolt of lightning struck the house, setting it ablaze.

Rebecca and her grandpa stared in horror for a few seconds before each ran out of the car. They were far enough away from any form of help that calling 911 would be pointless—by the time any firefighters made it out here, there wouldn’t be anything left in the house to save. If Robert was still alive, they were the only choice he had of getting help. Rebecca quickly called out “45 seconds!” before focusing everything on running and taking as deep of breaths as possible. Smoke inhalation could cause them to pass out within 2 minutes, so once they entered the building they would have 45 seconds to search before they would need to turn around and get out. Luckily, it was a small house, so it shouldn’t be too hard to check everything even with such a short period of time.

As soon as they entered the house, Rebecca turned left while her grandpa turned right. The next few rooms passed by in a blur of heat, smoke, and an ever-present focus on the clock ticking down in her head. However, the third room she entered almost made her lose track of the time entirely. A single shaft of sunlight cut through a hole in the ceiling, illuminating the remains of what looked to be a desk table. Rebecca could make out something on the table, and her curiosity got the better of her. She got a closer look, and almost recoiled in shock at the sight of a pristine Duel Monsters card—specifically, the Winged Dragon of Ra. If nothing else, that explained the sudden appearance and disappearance of the storm outside. The Egyptian gods tended to get extremely angry when someone played a copy of their cards, and sending forth a sudden thunderstorm had been their response in the past when Odion played a copy of the card.

Still, considering this card was capable of burning down a house, it wasn’t exactly safe to leave it laying around. Hopefully Ra would view her treatment of the card as a gesture of respect instead of her trying to use it for her own personal gain. She couldn’t help the trepidation as she grabbed the card, but that feeling instantly was replaced by shock as something grabbed her leg and yanked her backwards. It was all she could do to stop her face from hitting the ground and protect her glasses. She tried kicking out against whatever was dragging her. It didn’t accomplish anything other than wasting oxygen, so she decided to just go along with it, since it seemed to be dragging her to the exit. It would be easier to fight this when she wasn’t stuck in a burning building.

Sure enough, she was quickly dragged outside, but before she could even process her grandpa crying her name, she was wrapped up and forced upright. Now that she could look at something other than the ground, she saw her captor was blue and scaly—which really didn’t answer anything. A look over at her grandpa provided at least a clue, as he was currently being held captive by a giant snake monster. While there were certainly real snakes that could match this creature in length, none of them would be as thick, have a third eye on their faces, or have a second snake head at the end of their tails.

Before Rebecca had a chance to wonder on what any of this meant, she heard a feminine voice sigh. “You know, this is why it’s nice to have allies who can think for themselves. You can train snakes, but if they get confronted by a strange situation, they won’t know how to react.”

By craning her neck, Rebecca could tell the speaker was a middle-aged woman with tanned skin and greying hair. Considering what she had just said about the snakes, Rebecca knew she would have much better luck asking her what was going on than directing her questions elsewhere. Considering she was currently bound in such a way that talking was basically the only action she could take, asking questions seemed to be the only path forward.

“Okay, I guess that means you’re behind this. Would you mind explaining what’s going on? I’m guessing there’s some form of ancient magic involved since these monsters are solid, but I don’t see a Millennium Item or the Seal of Orichalcos around here. You’ve obviously got some control over what’s happening, and I’d hate to step on any magical land mines—figuratively, of course.”

If anything, the older woman seemed taken aback by her response, just staring at Rebecca for a few seconds before shaking her head. “Well, I must admit I was expecting you to do something stupid in panic at what was going on, but you must be the Hawkins girl. In some ways that simplifies things, but in others that just makes things more difficult. I guess I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine—is what my Venom Boa telling me correct that you now have the Winged Dragon of Ra in your possession?”

Rebecca rolled her eyes—of course this all came down to trading cards again. “Yes, I do. Now, how about you tell your snakes to let me and my grandpa go, and we can continue this discussion in a bit more of a civilized fashion?”

Her captor just snorted. “You seem to think you have more power in this situation than you actually do. I’d say you have no power at all, but I know from experience that the gods are tricky to work with. Now that Ra is in your possession, I don’t think I’ll be able to safely take it from you without proving my worthiness. Here’s how this is going to work: I’m going to let you down, and then I will duel you. When I win, you are going to hand over that Winged Dragon of Ra. Once the duel is over, I’ll have Venom Boa release your grandfather.”

Rebecca knew there was something about this that was a trap, but it wasn’t like she had any other options. “Well, I’d say I agree, but I’m not fully sure I can trust you. You never did answer my question about what was going on here.”

A predatory grin crossed the older woman’s features. “Well, I don’t think it’s fair to exchange a story about this whole situation for the answer to a yes or no question. However, to get to your earlier point, while these are physical manifestations of duel monsters, there is no external magic going on. I had what many people called psychic powers growing up, and once I found a suitable teacher to direct my ability, materializing duel monsters became child’s play.”

On a fundamental level that seemed to contradict everything Seto Kaiba had explained about how his newfound magical powers worked, but Rebecca supposed there would be multiple different forms of magic that resulted in the same effects of duel monsters being made solid. Still, that explanation at least meant there wasn’t any worry about her soul being on the line if she lost. Facing real duel monsters would likely be painful, but she was confident she’d be able to win, since she didn’t recognize this opponent and she knew all of the top-ranked duelists in the world.

“Alright, I guess I don’t really have a choice. I agree to your terms. Let me down, and let’s duel!” No sooner had the words left her mouth than Rebecca started falling to the ground, barely avoiding a painful landing. She had expected the snake to let her go, but apparently her soon-to-be opponent decided to just dismiss the monster and let gravity do its work. Not an aspiring start, but considering the start of their interactions, Rebecca supposed she shouldn’t expect anything friendly. She shuffled her deck and drew her opening hand, which had a good balance of old and new cards to her deck.

“Now, since you’re at the clear advantage here, considering you’re holding my grandpa hostage, I think it’s only fair that I get to go first.” Rebecca drew Dragon Ravine, adding it to her hand that consisted of Marie the Fallen One, Delta Flyer, Alexandrite Dragon, Solemn Wishes, and Dragon Revival Rhapsody. With that, she had everything she needed to pull off a splashy opening move. Holographic cliffs sprang up on both sides of the dueling arena as she played her first card.

“I activate the field spell, Dragon Ravine! Each turn, I can discard one card from my hand to activate one of two effects. Admittedly, the first effect isn’t relevant since I don’t run a Dragunity deck, but the second effect more than makes up for it. I’ll discard Marie the Fallen One in order to send Kidmodo Dragon from my deck to the graveyard. And since Kidmodo Dragon was just sent to the Graveyard, I can Special Summon one Dragon monster from my hand, at the cost of not conducting my Battle Phase or summoning anything other than a dragon. Of course, that’s not much of a problem at all on the first turn.”

The ghostly image of the fallen angel briefly appeared on the field, carrying with it a small orange dragon with barely-developed wings. The two disappeared just as the jeweled form of her Alexandrite Dragon appeared in their place. However, Rebecca wasn’t planning on leaving that monster on the field for long either.

“Now, I’ll use my normal summon on my Delta Flyer!” The golden wyvern with feathered wings appeared on the field with a chirp, sounding far more like a bird than the dragon its typing declared it to be. Still, none of that really mattered for her next move. “My level three Delta Flyer tunes my level four Alexandrite Dragon to Synchro Summon Clear Wing Synchro Dragon!”

Her Delta Flyer transformed into three green rings, while Alexandrite Dragon was converted into four glowing stars that aligned in the middle of the rings. A pillar of light heralded the coming of her newest monster, a dragon with white and blue armor that had translucent green wings. More important than its appearance, however, were its effects: if a level 5 or higher monster tried to activate its effect, or if any monster activated an effect that targeted a level 5 or higher monster, Clear Wing Synchro Dragon could negate the activation of the affect and destroy the monster. In addition, if Clear Wing Synchro Dragon destroyed a monster with its effects, it would add half of that monster’s original attack points to its own 2500 for the rest of the turn.

With her monster in play, Rebecca then set Solemn Wishes face down before ending her turn. “That’s it for me, but before we go on, I feel like I should at least ask your name. After all, you know me, and it only seems fair that I can call you something better than ‘that lady who summoned the snakes.’”

Rebecca’s opponent shook her head as she drew a card. “If I had known this was going to happen, maybe I wouldn’t have been so dismissive of using codenames. I’m not about to just tell you my whole life story or anything that lets you track me down, but I suppose I can at least give you a name. You may call me Evelyn. Now, I’ll set three cards face down and one monster in defense mode. Your move.”

Rebecca acted quickly. “Before your end phase is over, I activate my trap card, Solemn Wishes! This will let me get 500 life points when I start my draw phase now.” Her life points increased to 8500 as she added DNA Surgery to her hand, and then in her Standby Phase, Marie the Fallen One increased her life points again to 8700. She set DNA Surgery before moving on with her turn. While it was fairly obvious one of Evelyn’s set cards would be able to do something to prevent her from attacking successfully, Rebecca wasn’t going to sit back and let her put together whatever strategy she was going for.

“Clear Wing Synchro Dragon, attack her face down monster with Spinstorm Sky Strike!” Her dragon’s wings began glowing as it spun in midair before drilling down through Evelyn’s monster, which turned out to be some strange green-skinned monster that let out a horrific screech as it was destroyed. Evelyn just smirked. “You just destroyed my Skreech, and when it goes to the graveyard it doesn’t go alone. I have to send two water attribute monsters from my deck to the graveyard, so I will send two copies of Jar Turtle.”

Rebecca wasn’t sure what to make of that move. Jar Turtle was basically only released as a more limited form of Pot of Greed—it would allow its controller to draw an extra card whenever Jar of Greed was activated. That combined with its high defense caused it mainly to be used in Exodia decks, but there wasn’t much benefit to be had by dumping it directly to the graveyard. She was clearly missing Evelyn’s strategy, and she’d have to figure it out fast if she wanted to win this duel.

With nothing else left to do, Rebecca ended her turn, and Evelyn drew her next card. “Well, I can tell you’re wondering what my goal is, but you won’t be wondering much longer. I activate the spell card Trade-In, discarding Vennominon the King of Poisonous Snakes to draw two cards.” Rebecca suddenly realized the purpose of sending the Jar Turtles to the graveyard—it didn’t matter what the cards were, so long as they were Reptile types. Vennominon would get stronger for each Reptile in the graveyard—and things would only get worse if Evelyn managed to summon its upgraded form. Luckily, it was only a 500-point increase per Reptile, so this early in the duel Vennominon would only have 1500 attack points.

However, that all changed when Evelyn played her next card. “I activate Snake Rain! By discarding one card, I can send four Reptiles from my deck to my Graveyard. I’ll discard Gale Lizard in order to send Jar Turtle, Lion Alligator, and two copies of Skreech to the Graveyard. That sets things up perfectly for me to activate my trap, Limit Reverse! This lets me revive one monster in my Graveyard with 1000 or less attack—and as I’m sure you are aware, Vennominon has 0 attack in the Graveyard.”

The ground in front of Evelyn turned into a corrosive swamp before her monster rose out of the ground. The first thing visible were the snake-shaped crown and shoulder guards, but Rebecca’s eyes were quickly drawn away from that. The various snakes that made up the fingers and arms of the giant snake that was their ruler made the rest of the monster’s design more of an afterthought. Vennominon’s attack jumped up to 4000 thanks to the eight Reptiles in Evelyn’s graveyard, and since that was a continuous and non-targeting effect, Rebecca’s dragon couldn’t do anything to prevent it. However, Evelyn wasn’t quite done with her move yet.

“Now, I activate my second trap, Offering to the Snake Deity! With this I can destroy one of my Reptiles and two of your cards. I’ll destroy your Dragon and your Solemn Wishes, while my Vennominon goes to the graveyard as well.” A snake-themed temple appeared behind Evelyn, and the three cards she designated burst into flames as part of a ritualistic offering. However, Rebecca knew this was only the start of her problems, as there was only one reason Evelyn would so happily destroy her Vennominon after it became the strongest monster on the field.

Sure enough, Evelyn revealed her next card. “Lastly, I activate Rise of the Snake Deity! When Vennominon is destroyed outside of battle, I can summon Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes from my deck. The king is dead—long live the queen.” Rebecca heard the sound of cracking stone, and on glancing behind Evelyn, she noticed her initial assessment was incorrect—the structure behind Evelyn wasn’t a temple dedicated to Vennominaga; it was in fact the snake deity herself. With the sacrifice of the king, the amalgamation of snakes was freed, leaving Rebecca to face one of the hardest monsters in the game to get rid of.

Evelyn certainly seemed to revel in the appearance of her latest monster. “And here I was worried that I had to duel you. After all, you’re one of the top ranked duelists in the world. But none of that matters in the face of Vennominaga! She may be difficult to summon, but she still has Vennominon’s effect of gaining 500 attack for each Reptile in the Graveyard. If you do manage to destroy her by battle, she can resurrect herself at the simple cost of banishing a single Reptile. And if you try to take her out by any means other than battle, you can’t—she’s immune to all card effects except her own. I set one card face down, and now Vennominaga will attack you directly with Venom Vapor Stream!”

Rebecca held her breath, expecting to get hit by a cloud of poisonous gas based on the attack name. Instead, she let it out with a scream when one of Vennominaga’s snake arms opened its mouth, and the snake that served as its tongue shot forward and bit her just above her right elbow. Her arm started going numb as the blood started flowing out of the wound, reminding Rebecca she was dealing with more than just holograms in this duel. Her life points clicked down to 4200, but she got the distinct impression she might be dealing with a more important life counter than the one in the game. Her grandpa immediately called out to her, only for his voice to be silenced as the Venom Boa holding him captive tightened its grip.

Rebecca fought through the wooziness that must have been an effect of the snakebite and called out to Evelyn. “Okay, I think you’ve made your point. Why don’t we just end this duel, I can hand over the card, and you let me and my grandpa go?”

Evelyn shook her head. “I’m sorry, did you really think this came down to something as simple as asking nicely? I need to recover that card, and I need to make sure there aren’t any witnesses that I was ever here while doing it. Besides, I told you before that gods are tricky to handle. Vennominaga demands a life every time she is summoned. At this point, you’re collateral damage. It’s cruel, but the world is a cruel place. The only way to survive is to find a cause you are willing to support, even if that comes at the price of the wellbeing of others or even yourself. As soon as you and your grandfather arrived here, your fate was sealed. There will be a story of tragedy as the Hawkins family is found dead from rattlesnake bites.”

Rebecca grit her teeth. “Well, in that case there’s not much incentive for me to stop, now is there? Based on the terms for this duel, you have to let my grandpa go when it’s over. That means he will be alive at least until that point, and if Vennominaga is going to kill us, then I’ll just have to destroy her first.” It took her longer than normal to draw her next card as her arm wasn’t responding like she was used to, but she was finally able to draw a card—only to see Lava Dragon. It had a useful effect, but it was dependent on her having a level 3 or lower dragon in her hand, which wasn’t an option at this point. Still, it should prevent her from taking damage or any more poison next turn.

“I’ll set this monster in defense mode and end my turn. Your move, Evelyn.” Evelyn drew her next card and smirked. “I know you think your monster can protect you from Vennominaga’s wrath, but you are sorely mistaken. I activate my trap card, Final Attack Orders! All monsters on the field are now forced into attack position and cannot be switched to defense position.” Rebecca’s set card flipped over, revealing the eight-limbed purple dragon with a now inadequate 1600 attack points standing between her and Vennominaga’s 4500. She might not even get a chance to survive through this turn if Evelyn summoned a monster with 1500 attack points or more.

However, Evelyn’s next move was on the surprising side. “Now, I summon my Reptilianne Gardna in attack mode!” The deformed turtle appeared on Evelyn’s field, although Rebecca was having a hard time understanding the reason for that. Thanks to Evelyn’s own trap card, the monster was forced to stay in attack position, and it didn’t have any attack points. It did have an effect that would let Evelyn add a Reptilianne monster from her deck to her hand when it got destroyed, but that didn’t seem worth playing it at this point. However, Evelyn moved forward with her turn regardless.

“Reptilianne Gardna, attack her Lava Dragon!” The turtle seemed reluctant to follow the order, or maybe it was just extremely slow as it walked towards Rebecca’s monster. Lava Dragon didn’t appear particularly bothered by the attack, as it merely leaned its head down and swallowed the advancing turtle whole. Evelyn’s life points dropped to 6400, but she only smiled at the turn of events. “Now that my Gardna is destroyed, I get to add Reptilianne Gorgon from my deck to my hand. More importantly, Vennominaga’s attack jumps up to 5000, which means I’m one Reptile away from my monster being stronger than your Five-Headed Dragon if you manage to summon it. Now, Vennominaga, attack her Lava Dragon!”

This time, Vennominaga held out both of her arms, with one of the snakes biting Lava Dragon and destroying it while the other latched onto Rebecca’s left leg, making it hard to keep her balance and dropping her life points down to 1000. Evelyn, however, didn’t seem to particularly care about her opponent’s suffering.

“Well, that’s twice Vennominaga has dealt damage to you, which means she has two Hyper-Venom Counters. If she gets a third, I automatically win the duel—although I doubt that matters. You only have 1000 life points, and Vennominaga has 5000 attack points, so you aren’t likely to have any life points left if she damages you again. Even ignoring the game mechanics, three doses of her poison will be fatal anyway.” 

Rebecca wanted to make a witty retort, but at that point, her leg gave out on her. She collapsed to the ground. She tried pushing herself up, but her right arm couldn’t take her body weight either.She collapsed again. Eventually, she managed to get to her feet, with all of her weight on her good leg. She drew her next card, praying for Dragon’s Mirror so she could get Five-Headed Dragon out and have something that could at least tie Vennominaga in battle.Of course, that tie would be on paper only, since Five-Headed Dragon wouldn’t be destroyed in battle with a Dark attribute monster. She didn’t get her first wish, but she could at least make one of her new favorite cards turn to her advantage with the other combo pieces she already had. Marie’s effect brought her up to 1200 life points before she continued with her turn.

“I summon my Lady of D. in Attack mode!” The blonde spellcaster in black armor appeared on the field, with an array of white glyphs appearing behind her. “This handy card can prevent its own destruction by discarding a Dragon, and more importantly, she prevents you from being able to attack any dragons I happen to have. Of course, she’s not a dragon herself, but her being a Spellcaster lets me do this. I activate Dragon Revival Rhapsody! With this, if I control a Spellcaster, I can bring back 2 Dragon types from my Graveyard as long as one of them is a Normal monster. Return to me, Alexandrite Dragon and Delta Flyer!”

A lyre appeared in Lady of D.’s hands. As she began playing a song on it, the glyphs behind her spun in place until they suddenly exploded in light, revealing the two dragons had returned to the field. Each dragon became coated in a yellow barrier of magic as Lady of D.’s other effect kicked in, but Rebecca wasn’t planning on keeping them around for long. After all, she was in such a bad state because her opponent was making her duel monsters real. While Rebecca didn’t have that skill, she did have one monster who was capable of influencing events on Earth on her own.

“Now, my level three Delta Flyer tunes my level four Alexandrite Dragon. The holy light of protection, now cross and become eternal life! Synchro Summon! Ancient Fairy Dragon!” Rebecca had added the ancient chant that had been used around 5000 years ago when Ancient Fairy Dragon had last been involved in combat as extra insurance that her monster would heed her call. In the following column of light and rainbow glow that heralded the appearance of her monster, she could tell she was successful—while the duel disks were able to do a lot when rendering the monsters, the shadows cast and the dust stirred by her dragon’s tail told her it was a bit more physically present than a usual hologram.

_“I’m afraid that chant would be more appropriate for my brother than for myself,”_ a melodious voice chimed in her head, confirming her thought _. “I will only be able to mitigate the effects of the poison for a time, not remove them entirely. My brother is much better at promoting eternal life.”_

Rebecca merely smiled at her monster—anything would be better than doing nothing, and Ancient Fairy Dragon’s effects would be helpful for more than just counteracting the poison.

“Now, I activate my Ancient Fairy Dragon’s effect! Once per turn, I can destroy any active field spell to increase my life points by 1000 and then add a field spell from my deck to my hand. So, I’ll get rid of Dragon Ravine and add Defense Zone to my hand before activating it!” The cliffs surrounding the duel disappeared in a prismatic burst of light, and instead the outlines of an old-fashioned dueling arena appeared, with Rebecca’s set DNA Surgery and Evelyn’s’s active Final Attack Orders being encased in golden boxes. Rebecca’s life points increased to 2200 as she explained the card’s effect.

“Defense Zone is a bit unique. It relies on the exact placement of your spells and traps in relation to your monsters. If a player controls a monster in a particular column on the field, their spells or traps in that column cannot be targeted or destroyed by an opponent’s card effects. It adds an additional level of strategy to the game that most other cards don’t deal with. Still, that’s all I can do for now, so it’s your move.”

Her last statement wasn’t technically correct, but Rebecca merely said it to keep Evelyn guessing. Her opponent did seem wary but wasn’t about to stop her strategy. “I summon my Oshaleon in attack mode! Similar to Reptilianne Gardna, this monster will let me add another reptile to my hand once it gets destroyed. So, time to give Vennominaga a 500-point boost. Oshaleon, attack her Lady of D!”

The chameleon, which covered the visible light spectrum from its red tongue to its purple tail, shot a blast of light at Rebecca’s spellcaster, but Rebecca had a trap ready. “I activate DNA Surgery! Now, all monsters on the field except your Vennominaga will be treated as dragons. And since Lady of D. prevents you from declaring an attack on any dragons, there are no longer any valid targets for your attack. Vennominaga might not be directly affected by card effects, but she can still be impacted by cards that affect you as a player instead!”

Lady of D’s body became covered in scales as she turned into a draconic humanoid, causing the yellow barrier she cast over all dragons to extend to herself and Oshaleon’s attack to harmlessly dissipate against it. Evelyn sneered at Rebecca but was forced to end her turn. Rebecca drew Fire Princess and couldn’t help but smirk. It seemed she went up against some pretty impossible odds in her recent duels, but she always managed to find a way to prove that power wasn’t everything. Marie the Fallen One brought her life points up to 2400 before she continued with her move.

“Now, I’ll summon Fire Princess in attack mode! Since DNA Surgery and Lady of D. are on the field, she’s also immune to attack, and her effect will let me get at you without needing to go through Vennominaga. Now, I’ll use Ancient Fairy Dragon’s effect to destroy Defense Zone, but it won’t be gone for long. I’ll be using the affect to add another copy of Defense Zone to my hand, and I’ll activate that second copy!”

Fire Princess appeared on the field, taking a similar appearance to Lady of D and also getting enveloped by the other monster’s protective shroud of magic. Then Ancient Fairy Dragon let out an aurora that destroyed the existing image of the dueling arena, bringing Rebecca to 3400 life points, while Fire Princess cast a fireball that dropped Evelyn to 5900 life points. Finally, Rebecca activated the second copy of Defense Zone, restoring the field before she ended her turn.

Evelyn practically snarled as she drew her next card. “You won’t be able to protect your monsters or your DNA Surgery forever, especially if you keep destroying Defense Zone. I’ll get through whatever you can put up.” Whatever card she drew must not have been immediately helpful, though, as she set it in the spell and trap zone before ending her turn.

Rebecca drew Jar of Avarice, which was especially helpful in light of what Evelyn just had said. Fire Princess shot a fireball at Evelyn as Marie the Fallen One’s effect activated, and then Rebecca repeated the move of her last turn with Ancient Fairy Dragon to play her third and final copy of Defense Zone. She then set Jar of Avarice before ending her turn, with her life points at 4600 and Evelyn’s at 4900.

Evelyn drew her next card, but before her Draw Phase could finish Rebecca activated her trap. “I activate Jar of Avarice! This trap lets me select five cards in my graveyard, shuffle them into my deck or extra deck, and then draw one card. So, I’ll be returning Clear Wing Synchro Dragon to my extra deck and shuffling the two copies of Defense Zone, Solemn Wishes, and Kidmodo Dragon back into my deck in order to draw a card. What was that you said about me being on my last copy of Defense Zone?”

Rebecca drew Summoner Monk and could practically hear her opponent growl, but there wasn’t anything Evelyn could do to retort. She summoned Des Feral Imp, which had a helpful flip effect, but she wasn’t able to use it thanks to Final Attack Orders. If Rebecca had to guess, Evelyn was building up tributes to summon a second copy of Vennominon now that she wasn’t able to just ram her monsters into Rebecca’s to stock her graveyard. Summoning the gremlin was the only move Evelyn could make as she ended her turn.

Rebecca drew Hand Destruction, which she couldn’t use directly but still would help her deal more damage to Evelyn. After another round of Marie the Fallen One and Fire Princess’s effects giving her the lead for the first time in the duel, Rebecca moved on with her turn. “I summon Summoner Monk in attack mode! He might not be able to use his effect that switches himself to defense position, but I can still use his other effect. By discarding a spell card, I can summon a level four monster from my deck—so I’ll discard Hand Destruction to summon a second copy of Fire Princess! That means I can inflict double the damage when I repeat my Ancient Fairy Dragon’s effect!”

With the two copies of Fire Princess on the field, Ancient Fairy Dragon’s effect lead to a volley of fireballs that left the score at 5800 life points for Rebecca compared to 3400 for Evelyn. Since she was now able to deal 2000 points of damage per turn, Rebecca knew she just had to hold out for two more turns in order to win the duel—although a part of her was worried what that would accomplish. Sure, she would win the duel, but then she’d have to deal with the end of Ancient Fairy Dragon being able to counteract the venom already in her system. Also, there would be nothing stopping Evelyn from just summoning more snakes like her Venom Boas and still killing Rebecca and her grandfather..

Evelyn seemed to be having a similar realization, as she took a deep breath after drawing her next card. “I admit I let you get me worked up, but I’m done letting you get to me. Stall all you want—I’ll find a way to claim a victory from this yet. I’ll set this card face down and end my turn.”

Rebecca drew her next card and prepared for the light show that would accompany Marie the Fallen One and her two Fire Princesses both activating their effects, but before her draw phase was over, Evelyn activated her set card. “I activate a second copy of Offering to the Snake Deity! I may not be able to destroy DNA Surgery, but I can still destroy your Lady of D. and your Summoner Monk. Sure, I’ll still take damage this turn, but next turn Vennominaga will place her third counter and I win this duel.”

The two cards she designated burst into flames along with Evelyn’s Des Feral Imp, but Rebecca wasn’t worried about that. The turn moved on to her Standby Phase, where Marie and the two Fire Princesses worked to bring Rebecca’s life points up to 6000 and drop Evelyn down to 2400. However, even though Rebecca couldn’t protect her monsters next turn, she didn’t need to. “That implies that this duel goes until your turn—which it won’t. I activate Dragon’s Mirror! I banish Alexandrite Dragon, Delta Flyer, and Lava Dragon from my Graveyard as well as the two Fire Princesses from my field in order to summon Five-Headed Dragon!”

The five-faceted mirror appeared on the field, bringing out Rebecca’s most destructive monster. While it was equal to Vennominaga in attack power, Rebecca had a different target in mind. After all, Evelyn only had 2400 life points, and she had a monster on the field with less than 2600 attack points. “Five-Headed Dragon, destroy her Oshaleon with Torrent of Tiamat, and end this duel!” Her dragon roared as it began charging its attack, but Rebecca’s attention was more on her opponent, who seemed to be sighing.

“Looks like I’ll never get to see Arcadia realized…” Before Rebecca had a chance to question what that meant, Vennominaga turned and sank her fangs into Evelyn’s neck, which Rebecca was able to witness just before the elemental stream from her monster washed over the opposing duelist. When the holograms faded, Evelyn was lying on the ground, and the Venom Boa holding her grandfather captive had disappeared. Rebecca reached for her phone to send an emergency message to Mokuba, only for her arm to not respond. She had a second to wonder what that could mean before she collapsed. She blacked out before she could hit the ground.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Rebecca's friends try to come to terms with the attack on her, Mai gets a chance to find some answers by confronting a reminder of her past.

Téa sighed with relief as the curtain closed, signifying the end of another long rehearsal. While the individual actions in her performance weren’t too taxing, stringing them all together took a surprising amount of endurance. She was glad they were doing full run-throughs now, even though the actual performance wouldn’t be for another month. Still, there wasn’t any rehearsal on Friday this week, which meant she would get to enjoy a more relaxing day as she got ready for Valentine’s Day weekend.

As she headed to the dressing room thinking about her plans, she didn’t notice someone sneaking up behind her until they put their arm on her shoulder. She couldn’t help the speed with which she spun around trying to break the grip, only to immediately relax when she saw her friends Nina and Natalie behind her. Nina had enrolled at the same time as Téa and was a quarter Japanese, and she was really helpful getting Téa to acclimate to New York City. In contrast, Natalie had transferred in at the start of the semester, and the younger woman was still trying to adjust to life in the big city even though she was a native of upstate New York.

While Téa was certainly friends with both of them, she hadn’t yet gone into the crazier details of her life with them yet. As such, she had to just laugh off her reaction as just her being jumpy, instead of passing it off as justified paranoia After all, there was some group that had found an Orichalcos stone and had been doing some magical tampering with duel spirits. Téa enjoyed a chance to at least pretend to have a normal life, but she couldn’t help the feeling that the world of magic would soon be pulling her back in. Still, she plastered a grin on her face as Nina and Natalie started discussing their plans for the weekend.

Natalie was the first to bring up the topic. “Hey Téa, Nina and I were planning on hitting up this new nightclub tomorrow night. You wanna come?”

Téa smiled. “I’d love to, but I’d have to leave early. My boyfriend’s flight is due to arrive in at midnight, and I’m going to need to be at JFK to meet him. Depending on where the club is, I might be able to stop in for a couple of hours, or I might need to take a rain check.”

Nina couldn’t help but smirk. “Actually, Natalie, change of plans. If Téa is going to meet up with her super-secret boyfriend, I think we’ll have more fun heading to the airport. I mean, it’s been a year, and I still haven’t seen this guy in person. You can’t keep him hidden from us forever—you need to bring him out with us sometimes! He’s been to New York how many times, and I feel like he hasn’t seen anything outside of whatever is between the airports and your apartment.”

Téa rolled her eyes—at the very least, Nina was no longer thinking Yugi was some sort of made-up boyfriend back home, but she was still way too pushy about that. “I’ve told you before, he doesn’t like huge crowds of people. He probably wouldn’t come out to a city like this if it wasn’t for me, so I like to let him set the pace.”

An evil gleam crossed Natalie’s eyes. “Oh, let it go, Nina. I know if I had to fly 7000 miles just to see my girlfriend for a weekend, I certainly wouldn’t want to leave the apartment either. After all, nothing ruins the romance quite like a fine for indecent exposure. The apartment would be well stocked and we wouldn’t leave it for a good 48 hours.”

Téa tried to fight the blush that came to her cheeks, but luckily Nina cut in. “Yeah, but unlike the obvious sex god that you are, some of us mere mortals do other things with their lives. Besides, I’ve seen a bunch of Téa’s conversations with this Yugi guy. If there’s any role-playing going on, it’s going to be more of the trading card variety than the bedroom variety.”

Natalie smirked. “Why not both? Who’s to say Téa doesn’t have a special Dark Magician Girl costume?”

Téa suppressed a shudder. “Yeah, I’m going to have to stop you right there. Yugi and I have our own thing we do, but I can assure you we don’t get Duel Monsters involved. He works in game design and likes to take his time away not thinking about work, thank you very much.” Besides, since Dark Magician Girl was a Duel Monster spirit that she and Yugi were both close with, that would be way too awkward. Of course, she couldn’t really explain that without sounding crazy, so instead she switched the topic.

“Getting back on track, if the two of you would like to meet Yugi, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind too much if you went to the airport with me to pick him up. Though I warn you he’ll be a bit out of it—flying for that long really takes it out of you, even if you sleep on the plane. I just hope the protests will be quieted down by then.”

Nina, who lived closer to the site of the protests than Téa did, nodded her head. “I still can’t believe people are protesting that. I mean, the Guardian Foundation is all about helping kids who have no other forms of support. Who cares if there’s some mystery on where all the funding came from? Let the court case handle things, and don’t go protesting the opening of a children’s shelter just because you think it has ties to the Illuminati or whatever.”

Téa was all set to continue the conversation, but she let out a gasp as she got her phone out of the locker and saw a message from Arthur Hawkins. “Sorry, but I’m going to have to catch up with you later. I just found out that one of my friends got hospitalized, and her grandpa says he needs to talk with me. I need to see what this is about.”

* * *

Mai jolted awake to the sound of a large thump outside her window. She jerked out of bed wondering if someone was trying to break into her apartment, only to remember she was currently in a hotel in France—and currently on the fourth floor. She wondered if she was misplacing the direction of the sound until the sound repeated, only this time as more of a light tapping. Now it sounded more like someone throwing rocks at her window, and whoever was doing that was going to get an earful for waking her up shortly after midnight. She went to the window without turning the light on, wanting her vision in the dark to be as sharp as possible in order to see what was happening.

Mai almost regretted that choice once she pulled aside the curtain and opened the shade on the window. If she wasn’t able to see through it clearly, she would have been able to pass off what she saw as a trick of the shadows. However, now she didn’t have that excuse to explain the pure red eyes staring at her from a black cat—although cat was the closest descriptor she could use. The thing perched on her windowsill was larger than a golden retriever and yet still managing to perch itself on a window ledge that couldn’t be more than a couple of inches wide. This strange visitor was wearing a large gold medallion around its neck, and it was carrying a rolled-up piece of paper in its mouth.

As soon as the cat noticed Mai was looking at it, it wedged the piece of paper through a hole it must have slashed through the window screen. It then nodded at her before vanishing into thin air. Mai was half tempted to think she had imagined the whole thing, but the scrap piece of paper wedged in her window screen remained. Knowing she wouldn’t get any answers staring through a closed window, she opened it and grabbed the note. All that was written on it was an address a few blocks from her hotel, instructions to bring her deck for a 1 am meeting, and a warning to come alone, or the next duel monster she dealt with would be more threatening than a cat.

While the duel monster theory at least explained what she saw, it didn’t explain how one could be apparently solid enough to cut through her window. After her extended stay in the Shadow Realm and her time running around as one of Dartz’s henchwomen, she thought she was more attuned to most whenever there was magic afoot, but she hadn’t gotten any strange feelings of that nature. Still, the fact that someone was threatening her with solid duel monsters put her in a bit of a bind. She obviously couldn’t just run off and investigate without telling anybody, but there wasn’t anybody in the same country that she could turn to who would believe her about the current situation. She’d have to get creative.

She went to her phone, intent on calling Joey and the others, only to find a message from Joey had come in while she was sleeping. The message almost made her reconsider—apparently Rebecca had been put into the hospital thanks to a duel with someone who was able to manifest duel spirits on their own. In addition to that, Joey had warned her that these people had access to cards they shouldn’t—Rebecca had gotten into the mess in the first place after finding a copy of the Winged Dragon of Ra. The invitation she had received just went from suspicious to dangerous, so she knew she’d have to proceed with caution.

* * *

Half an hour later saw Mai staking out the abandoned warehouse where she was supposed to duel. After getting Joey’s message, she had called him to explain her current situation and get whatever information they had about the duelist who had attacked Rebecca. However, since the woman hadn’t been taken in alive, they didn’t exactly have any credible source of information to know what to expect. That meant Mai was the only person who had a lead right now. She’d have to take the chance and follow the invitation.

Still, she had at least taken a few precautions. In addition to letting all of her friends know what she was doing, she had set up an eight o’clock wake-up call with the front desk. With that, there would at least be people who knew she was missing if worst came to worst. Combine that with downing one of the strongest caffeinated drinks she could find and giving it time to wake her up, she was ready to go in and find out what this was all about fifteen minutes before the deadline. She didn’t see anything suspicious outside of the warehouse or when she looked through the windows, so all that was left was to enter.

As soon as she stepped inside, she heard a high-pitched voice call out, “Wow, you’re early. Usually criminals try to show up late to their execution.” For a second, Mai thought Valon was back to stalking her due to the accent, despite the fact that she and Valon were actually on good terms now, and Valon had never sounded like a preteen girl. The lights in the warehouse came on, revealing the speaker to be a girl who couldn’t have been more than eight, with her brunette hair done up in pigtails. There didn’t appear to be anybody else around, but even an eight-year-old could be threatening if they could call up any duel monster they wanted.

Still, even though she wasn’t underestimating the threat of this new opponent, she did need to get some information. Considering the girl’s apparent age, Mai figured the quickest way forward would be to goad her with banter. “So, execution? If you don’t mind me asking, what crimes did I commit to warrant that? And on whose authority are you carrying it out? Trying to kill me is one thing, but the word ‘execution’ has a lot of different connotations.”

It wasn’t exactly the most subtle way of fishing for information, but luckily Mai’s target took the bait. “Why, on my own authority of course. My name is Crystal, and I am the reincarnation of the last princess of Atlantis. I would have been able to rule my kingdom in peace a couple of years ago—but you and the rest of the Orichalcos servants ruined that and destroyed my kingdom! For that crime, the only punishment is death!”

Mai wasn’t sure what was worse—dealing with someone who was obviously stuck living in a fairy tale, or the fact that there might be enough truth behind this girl’s story that she could be right. “Okay, I’ll admit I’ve done some horrible things, and the Orichalcos is definitely at the top of the list. But when I was using the Orichalcos, I was taking my orders from Dartz. He was the king of Atlantis, and he never mentioned any family. As for Atlantis being destroyed, I’m pretty sure that happened due to the Leviathan which Dartz summoned, not from me. Now, why don’t we try to talk though this? Better yet, how about you go home to your parents and we resume this conversation in the morning?”

“Who needs parents? I’ve gotten by just fine without them. As for Dartz, he was my predecessor’s father. He gave up his right to the throne when he let the Orichalcos take over his mind. Since my past life died before she was able to claim the throne, that makes me the rightful heir. Now, are you going to submit to your fate, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?”

Mai sighed. “Considering the fact that you told me to bring my deck, I’m guessing you already were planning on me resisting. So, what is this, some kind of trial by combat?”

Crystal nodded cheerily. “Yep! I talked with my knights and they weren’t too happy to kill you without a trial. So, we’re going to duel, and when you lose, you’ll lose your head.”

Mai could feel the start of a headache coming on, although she wasn’t sure if that was just the late hour or having to deal with this kid. Still, as annoying as it was, she was the only lead, and she’d have to be sure to take some cautious steps here. “Well, if this is going to be a trial, I think it’s only fair for me to know exactly how this legal system works. I gathered from your cat that you can make the monsters real, and they’ll probably be what kills me if my life points hit zero. But what happens if I win? My days of dueling to harm my opponent is over. I have some questions I want to ask you, and I can’t do that if you go and die from this.”

Crystal scoffed. “Please. Why would I put my own life at risk here? My monsters are actually nice and would never kill an innocent girl like me. They only punish the wicked—and it’s not like your holograms can do anything to me. I guess if you can prove you are innocent, I can answer your questions as a reward.”

Inwardly, Mai let out a sigh of relief. This Crystal may have had a strange grasp on reality, in that she could threaten to kill someone while also believing herself to be innocent, but even so Mai was glad the little girl wasn’t in mortal danger. Dueling for someone’s life was too close to dueling for someone’s soul, and Mai had had quite enough of causing others to suffer serious harm. That’s not to say she was going to just stand aside if someone tried to pull something against her, but there was a big difference between being forced into self-defense and going into a situation knowing you were going to have to kill a kid to move on.

Still, if all it would take to get some answers out of this situation was to beat a kid in a duel, Mai was more than willing to step up to the challenge. “Well, with that out of the way I think it’s about time we get on with this trial. I guess you should go first, your highness.” With that, both players activated their duel disks and drew their opening hands. Mai saw she already had three of the new additions to her deck in her hand, with Aqua Chorus, Phalanx Pike, and Divine Wind of Mist Valley alongside her Harpie Dancer and Harpie Queen. It was hard to ask for a better opening setup, but since she had already let her opponent have the first turn, she’d have to wait a little bit to use it.

Crystal drew her opening card and smiled at her opponent. “Well, this won’t be helpful right now, but I’m sure it will come in handy later. Still, I’ve been talking before about my knights, though I suppose I should let you know I’ve got a whole army. Let’s show that off, shall we? I activate Reinforcement of the Army, which lets me add a level 4 or lower Warrior monster from my deck to my hand. Then, I summon my Marauding Captain in attack mode! When he’s normal summoned, I can special summon a level 4 or lower monster from my hand, so I’ll summon Command Knight!”

The blonde soldier armed with a broadsword appeared on the field, pulling out a horn and blowing into it. The call was answered by a woman in red armor accented with feathers. Mai couldn’t help the feeling of excitement over this—her opponent seemed to have a similar strategy that she did of relying on using multiple monsters that were individually weaker, but that worked together to build up a much stronger force. She was just lucky that Crystal had made this move instead of summoning two copies of either card. Both Marauding Captain and Command Knight could lock down the opponent from attacking, but Marauding Captain only protected other Warrior monsters and Command Knight only protected itself if there was another monster on the field. With only one of each on the field, that protection was redundant, and Mai would be free to attack Marauding Captain.

However, Crystal wasn’t done with her move yet. “Now, I activate my continuous spell, The A. Forces! With this, my army gets stronger the larger it gets—for each Warrior I control, all of my Warriors gain 200 attack points. Since I have two Warriors, and my Command Knight also has an effect that boosts all Warrior type monsters by 400 attack, that makes both of my monsters have 2000 attack points. I think that will be all for now, so now it’s your turn.”

Mai drew Hysteric Party and smirked. “You know, apart from the whole Warriors versus Winged Beasts difference, I feel like I’m dueling a version of myself. Unfortunately for you, that means I’m just as good at swarming the field with helpful effects. I activate my field spell, Divine Wind of Mist Valley!” A light mist filled the warehouse, which wasn’t enough to obscure anything from view, but it was enough to cause the tiny rainbows to appear around the warehouse lights.

“Now, this handy spell card will let me summon a level 4 or lower Wind monster from my deck if one of my Wind monsters returns to my hand. And I just so happen to have the perfect combination with this—I summon my Harpie Dancer!” The blonde Harpie with navy spandex appeared on the field with a flurry of feathers, but Mai wasn’t keeping her out for long. “Now, by my Dancer’s effect, I can return one Wind monster from the field to my hand and then summon a Wind monster from my hand. So, by returning my Dancer, I get to summon my Harpie Queen to the field, and then with the effect of Divine Wind of Mist Valley, I get to summon Harpie Lady 1 from my deck in attack mode!”

Mai’s dancer did a pirouette, grabbing the holographic representation of her own card and flying back to Mai’s hand. This was followed by the green-haired Harpie Queen and the red-headed Harpie Lady 1 both swooping out of the mist. Thanks to Harpie Lady 1’s effect, a breeze kicked up behind Mai, giving her monsters a tailwind that boosted their attack by 300. While her Harpie Lady 1 couldn’t beat Command Knight, she could at least do some damage.

“Now, Harpie Queen, attack Marauding Captain with Talons of Tyranny!” The regal Harpie rose into the air before doing a front flip, diving down towards Crystal’s soldier, dicing him apart with the claws on both her hands and feet, and taking away 200 of Crystal’s life points. With that, Mai ended her battle phase and set her Aqua Chorus and Hysteric Party. “I’m going to set two cards and then end my turn. Do your worst, princess.”

Crystal growled as she drew her card. “You know, I can tell when you’re just patronizing me. I set one card face down, and then summon Obnoxious Celtic Guard in attack mode! I’ll also switch Command Knight to attack mode as well. You only get the power boost as long as your Harpie Lady 1 is in play, so let’s fix that, shall we? Command Knight, destroy Harpie Lady 1 with La Pucelle!”

The female knight brandished her broadsword and charged forward, but Mai was ready for that. “I activate my trap card, Aqua Chorus! If there are monsters on the field with the same name, those monsters gain 500 attack points. Since both of my monsters have their names treated as Harpie Lady while on the field, that pushes my Harpie Lady 1 up to 2100 points, making her 100 points stronger than your Command Knight.”

The mist from Mai’s field spell condensed into duplicates of her Harpies. The image of Harpie Queen worked alongside Harpie Lady 1 to deflect the oncoming sword slash and leave an opening, which Harpie Lady 1 used to slash Command Knight to pieces. Crystal’s life points dropped to 7700, and since she had lost Command Knight, her Obnoxious Celtic Guard’s attack dropped from 2200 to 1600, making it too weak to deal with either of Mai’s monsters. The little girl huffed in frustration before setting one card face down and ending her turn.

Mai drew Triangle Ecstasy Spark before continuing with her turn. “Well, I guess here’s the downside of my trap: since all of my monsters now have over 1900 attack, your Obnoxious Celtic Guard can’t be destroyed by battle. Luckily, that won’t stop you from taking damage. I’ll summon my Harpie Dancer, use her effect to send herself back to my hand, and then summon her again while using my Divine Wind of Mist Valley to summon a second Harpie Lady 1 to the field.”

By the time her move had finished, Mai had a veritable flock of Harpies on the field, all of which were powered up to the point where Harpie Queen had 3000 attack, the two Harpie Lady 1s each had 2400 attack, and Harpie Dancer had 2300. It wasn’t enough to push for game, but she should still get some good damage in. “Harpie Queen, attack her Obnoxious Celtic Guard!”

The royal Harpie began climbing, but before she could even start the attack motion Crystal interrupted. “Do you really think I’d let you damage me so easily? I activate my trap card, Magical Hats! This lets me select two non-monster cards from my deck, shuffle them with my Obnoxious Celtic Guard, and set all three in defense mode.”

As the three hats appeared on the field, Mai called off her attack. Now that Obnoxious Celtic Guard was in defense mode, she couldn’t deal any damage—and unlike the older version of Magical Hats, the hats would automatically disappear at the end of the Battle Phase. There wasn’t even a benefit to clearing out the hats that didn’t contain the monster. However, when Mai ended her turn, she caught a glimpse of the cards that had been used to generate the hats, and her blood ran cold.

“Wait, did you just send The Claw of Hermos and The Eye of Timaeus to your graveyard? How did you even get those cards?” Left unasked was a third and potentially more devastating question: if Crystal had such powerful cards, why was she willing to just throw them away? However, Crystal just smirked.

“Well, the obvious answer is yes, I did just send those cards to the Graveyard. I told you, I’m the princess of Atlantis—why wouldn’t the Legendary Dragons obey me? As for how I got them, let’s just say I found someone who finally respected me for who I was and happened to have the resources to make the cards for me. If you manage to beat me, I might even give you a name. Now, it’s my turn.”

She drew her card and started laughing. “Well, remember how I told you my Knights wanted to give you a trial? I think it’s about time we called them to the field, don’t you? I activate my spell card, Legend of Heart! It costs me 2000 life points, and I need to sacrifice my Obnoxious Celtic Guard, but I can then banish up to three Legendary Dragon cards from my hand or graveyard to summon that many Legendary Knights. I banish The Claw of Hermos and The Eye of Timaeus from my graveyard along with The Fang of Critias from my hand in order to summon Legendary Knight Timaeus, Legendary Knight Critias, and Legendary Knight Hermos from my deck!”

The three Legendary Dragons appeared on the field, only for a blinding flash to consume them all. When it cleared, three knights wearing armor that was the same color as the dragons were facing Mai with swords drawn, and the mist and water duplicates behind her Harpies had vanished. Mai knew the Legendary Dragons were actually knights that had been transformed into dragons, but since she hadn’t been conscious for the final battles with Dartz, this was the first time she was seeing them in person. She was taken aback by how familiar they looked—the hair was different, but otherwise it felt like she was looking at Yugi, Joey, and Kaiba. Although, Mai supposed that wasn’t quite correct. Yugi had never lost his right eye, and Timaeus’s left eye had an intensity to his glare that Yugi never seemed to manage—although she had seen that on Yugi’s face when the Pharaoh had been in control.

She only got a chance to see the knights’ faces for a second before they turned towards Crystal. Mai followed their gaze and was surprised to see the little girl down on her knees, panting for breath. Mai took a couple steps forward only for Hermos to turn to her with his sword drawn, clearly signaling she wasn’t supposed to approach. Mai held up her hands in surrender and stopped walking, but she still called out to her opponent.

“Hey, are you okay? If there’s something about summoning these monsters that harms you, we can find a different method of doing this. It might be easier without the holograms—I’d be happy to switch to just using the cards.”

Crystal didn’t pick her head up, but she managed to bite out a retort. “Yeah, but I need to have the holograms in order to summon things for real. I’m training to get better, but I still need the focus for my powers. And the whole point of this is for my knights to punish you. It just takes a lot out of me to summon them. I’ll be fine in a few minutes. Worry about yourself.”

Mai rolled her eyes but went back to her starting position. She knew what it was like to be a young girl determined to make it in the world on her own. If someone had forced their help on her when she was younger, she would have pushed them away out of resentment. Instead, she’d do what Yugi’s group had done—show she was willing to help, but let Crystal set the pace. While she was letting Crystal recover, Mai took the time to read over the effects of the three Legendary Knights. They weren’t quite as versatile as they had been in dragon form, but they still had fairly powerful effects on top of 2800 attack—which was now 3400 thanks to The A. Forces.

All of them shared an effect that let them banish a face-up spell or trap when they were summoned, which explained why her Divine Wind of Mist Valley and her Aqua Chorus were no longer in effect. Each of the knights also had a different effect that activated if they were ever targeted for an attack. Timaeus and Critias had similar effects, with Timaeus allowing the controller to set a spell card from their graveyard and Critias doing the same for traps. Hermos, however, was more interesting. He would target a monster in the Graveyard and replace his own name and effects with those of the targeted monster.

Crystal finally seemed to recover from the exertion of summoning her monsters and continued her turn. “Now, since your Harpie Lady 1s are powering up the rest of your monsters, it seems like I should get rid of them first. Timaeus, destroy one of them with your Sword of Justice!” The green-armored knight slashed apart one of the red-headed Harpies, then continued charging at Mai. She crossed her arms over her chest to at least try and protect any vital organs from the solid duel monster, but to her surprise, the knight sheathed his sword and only punched her as she was blocking. The force of the blow was enough to knock her backwards, but she would be fine with a few bruises, considering the alternative.

Crystal didn’t seem to be too happy with her monster’s behavior, even though Mai’s life points still dropped down to 6500 from the attack. “Timaeus, why are you showing mercy to the opponent? Are you going against the wishes of your princess?” The knight turned around and seemed to have a conversation with his master, but since Mai wasn’t able to hear duel spirits, she was only getting one half of the conversation.

“Well, yes, the trial is still ongoing…don’t you get smug with me, mister…ugh, fine! You know I hate it when you pull that card. And stop laughing!” She then turned her attention to her other monsters. “Okay, Critias, your turn. Destroy her last Harpie Lady 1 with Sword of Wisdom!” This time, Mai was prepared for the knight to punch her after it slashed her monster to pieces—but Critias instead hit her arm with the flat of his sword, leaving her arm stinging in pain as her life points dropped to 4700. It seemed even an ancient Atlantean duel monster version of Seto Kaiba could pull off the same smug smirk.

Crystal took a couple of seconds to contemplate her next move before continuing. “Well, your Harpie Queen is certainly stronger, but your Harpie Dancer seems like it will be more helpful to you in terms of setting up combos, so I think I’ll get rid of that next. Hermos, destroy Harpie Dancer with your Sword of Renewal!” Hermos made quick work of Mai’s weakest monster, following up his slash with a smile she had often seen on Joey’s face when he was mugging for the cameras. The monster then gave her a flick on the forehead, taking her down to 2500 life points. As Mai got her balance back, Crystal ended her turn.

The younger duelist seemed confident that her monsters gave her the advantage, but Mai wasn’t worried—she already had everything she needed to surpass them. She drew Three of a Kind, which would let her make a great play, but she’d have to wait until next turn to activate the trap. Still, that wasn’t much more of a roadblock for her next move.

“I’ll set this one card face down, and then equip my Harpie Queen with Phalanx Pike! This handy spell gives the equipped monster 900 additional attack points for each monster with the same name in my graveyard. Normally that would be limited to an 1800-point boost, but since my Harpie Queen is treated as Harpie Lady on the field, and my Harpie Lady 1s and Harpie Dancer are treated as Harpie Lady in the graveyard, that boosts my Queen’s attack by 2700 and puts her at 4600 points.”

The spirits of the monsters in Mai’s graveyard appeared behind her Harpie Queen as the monster grabbed the golden spear, severely boosting her power. That only left Mai to pick her target. Attacking Critias would result in Crystal recycling her Magical Hats, meaning Mai would only have a one in three chance of destroying the monster, and even in that case, she wouldn’t get to deal battle damage. Attacking Hermos would cause it to either copy Obnoxious Celtic Guard’s effect to prevent destruction by battle or Command Knight’s effect to increase its attack points by 400 and reduce the damage that way. So, it seemed like there was really only one good choice. “Harpie Queen, attack Legendary Knight Timaeus!”

The knight tried to deflect the golden pike with his sword, but his blade shattered under the assault. He disintegrated, taking Crystal down to 4500 life points. The little girl seemed distraught at seeing one of her favorite monsters gone, but she managed to continue her play. “By attacking Timaeus, I get to take the Legend of Heart in my graveyard and set it on the field.” Mai was surprised at her choice—taking a spell that required sacrificing a warrior monster, 2000 life points, and between one and three other cards just to summon monsters Crystal already had on the field didn’t seem too helpful. However, the move seemed to work for Crystal, as she drew her next card and cheered.

“Well, I’d say this is perfect timing. I summon Obnoxious Celtic Guard in attack mode. Then, I activate my set Legend of Heart, sacrificing my Celtic Guard, 2000 life points, and The Fang of Critias I just drew in order to summon one Legendary Knight monster. But the thing is, I don’t need to summon the knight that corresponds to the dragon I banished. So, I’m going to summon my second copy of Legendary Knight Timaeus!”

The green-armored knight reappeared on the field, and Mai prepared to lose her Phalanx Pike to its effect. It ultimately wouldn’t matter, as she still had everything she needed to claim this duel as her own. However, Crystal saw her reaching for the card and interrupted her. “Not so fast. While I can use Timaeus’s effect to banish a card, I’m not going to. Regardless of whether your Pike is on the field or not, it makes absolutely no difference in my next play. After all, by only summoning one knight, I don’t have to deal with the exhaustion from summoning all three, which lets me do this. I send my three Legendary Knights to the Graveyard in order to summon Timaeus the Knight of Destiny from my Extra Deck!”

A glowing infinity symbol appeared on the field as the knight with the Pharaoh’s face held his sword aloft, while his compatriots both jabbed their swords into the ground and knelt down. After a half second, the two knights on either side of Timaeus turned into energy and were absorbed into the last knight’s sword, causing it to emit a golden glow that forced Mai to avert her gaze. When the glow settled, she turned back to see Timaeus had grown to three times his previous size, and he was now covered in golden armor. Crystal had once again collapsed to the ground from the effort of summoning this monster, but since it didn’t look concerned, Mai gathered she would be recovering soon. Once again, it gave her time to familiarize herself with the card’s effects.

Mai quickly realized Crystal had been right when she said Phalanx Pike was irrelevant. Timaeus the Knight of Destiny had variable attack points, always being equal to the monster it battled. Add that to the fact that it was unaffected by any other card effect, and would summon the three Legendary Knights back to the field whenever it was destroyed, and you got a card that was essentially a way to clear one monster from the field to free up the other knights for direct attacks. It was certainly an impressive card, and Mai almost felt bad that it was as irrelevant as her Phalanx Pike. Mai had everything she needed to clear out Crystal’s field this turn and win next turn—all this changed was a bit of the timing on when she pulled off her move.

After a minute Crystal recovered from the drain of summoning the monster and moved on with her turn. “Now, Timaeus, I think it’s time we dethrone a certain tyrannical queen. Destroy her Harpie Queen with Sword of Infinite Justice!” The golden knight swung his mighty broadsword at Mai’s monster, who countered with a thrust of her golden lance. Both monsters seemed to take severe damage, but, while Mai’s monster shattered and was sent to the graveyard, Crystal’s merely split into its component parts.

Crystal smirked. “Well, now I have three monsters with 3400 attack and you only have 2500 life points. Do you have enough with your two facedown cards to stop all three attacks?”

Mai shook her head. “Plenty. Now that your monsters are done being summoned and can’t use their effects to banish my cards, I activate the trap card, Hysteric Party! By discarding my Triangle Ecstasy Spark, I summon as many copies of Harpie Lady as possible from my graveyard. So, welcome back Harpie Queen, Harpie Dancer, and both copies of Harpie Lady 1! But this is more than just defense, because now that they are all on the field, I can activate my other card, Three of a Kind! If I have three or more monsters on the field with the same name, I get to destroy three cards on your side of the field. Say goodbye to your knights!”

The flurry of feathers signaling the resolution of Hysteric Party’s effect surrounded the three knights, who calmly nodded in acceptance before they were sent to the graveyard. Crystal blinked in shock and clenched her fists, but after a few deep breaths she relaxed them. “Well, I did say this was your trial, and it looks like you just proved your innocence. Since I have no other moves, it seems pointless to continue. I surrender, and I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability.”

Mai smiled. “Glad that’s over. You’ve got a great deck, and with a bit of practice to get better with your ability, you’ll make quite a name for yourself. Still, I’m going to have to ask you to wait on the questions a little bit. I’ve got some friends who will want to hear your answers as well, so do you mind if we set up a phone call on this?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Crystal's information, Yugi and his friends are able to come up with a plan to stop Mahado before things get any more dangerous.
> 
> Unfortunately, this just results in Mahado making a desperate attempt to recruit a more powerful ally...

Téa couldn’t help but wonder how odd this would look to an outside observer. One would think that an aspiring professional dancer would almost never have a need to be on a conference call, let alone one with the CEO of a multinational company, some of the world’s top duelists, and a respected archeologist. Still, with balancing time zones, this was the only way to get some of the world’s leading experts on magic onto the same call. Even then, there were still people missing, but with Yugi, Mokuba, Joey, Arthur, Rebecca, and Mai on the line, it was probably the largest group conversation Téa had had outside of holidays.

Mai snapped Téa out of her musings when she started the conversation. “So, is this everybody who could make it? I’m sure we’ve got a lot to talk about, but I’d rather not have to stop and start everything if people will be calling in for the next couple of minutes.”

Yugi was the one who answered. “I think we’ve got everyone. Tristan wasn’t able to get out of work, and Grandpa needs his sleep too much to wake him up for this. We weren’t able to get a hold of Bakura or the Ishtars on such short notice, and Kaiba apparently decided to fly to Duelist Kingdom to shake down Pegasus in person, since he wasn’t answering either. Not sure when he’ll join in, but I’d rather not bother Rebecca too much. We’ll be able to fill anybody in on what they missed later.”

Téa heard a tired sounding sigh come over the Hawkins’ line. “Yeah, probably for the best. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stay awake. Grandpa will be filling me in if I miss anything. We also might drop off if the nurses come back, since I’d rather not undergo psych evaluations, too.”

Mai sighed over her line. “You know, as much as I agree with keeping powerful forces out of the hands of those who would misuse them, I’m not sure that we should keep everything secret still. It’s not like anybody who wants to take over the world will care if people think they are crazy, so we’re really only hurting ourselves. Anyway, I’ve got Crystal with me, so I think it’s about time we get some answers. We’ll start with something simple: where did you get the cards for Timaeus, Critias, and Hermos?”

The voice that responded was difficult for Téa to understand through a thick British accent, but it must have been the girl Mai had messaged everyone about. “They were a gift from some American bloke who called himself Mahado. I doubt that’s his real name, but he helped me find my bonded spirits and realize I was the reincarnation of the last princess of Atlantis.”

Mokuba cut in. “This is mainly me jumping in to say what my brother would, but how do we know you actually are a reincarnation? All we’ve got is your word on it. Just because you have some Legendary Dragons on your side doesn’t mean we can actually trust you.”

Yugi responded before Crystal had a chance to. “I don’t know, Mokuba. The Legendary Dragons won’t let just anybody play them. Even Atem couldn’t use Timaeus for a while after he played the Seal of Orichalcos. Admittedly, we’ve never seen what happens with multiple copies of the Legendary Dragons like we did with the Egyptian Gods, but I think that might be enough proof on its own.”

This time, Téa was able to provide a better solution. “Mai, would you be able to send me a picture of Crystal? Looking at the Phar—I mean, Atem, the priest Seto, and even the past version of Bakura, it seems pretty obvious that they look a lot like their present-day counterparts. I actually got to interact with the spirit of Dartz’s daughter—I’ll be able to tell if Crystal looks like her or not.”

Of course, even as Téa said it, she knew it would be harder than she made it sound to identify if Crystal was really Chris’s reincarnation. After all, she had only interacted with the Atlantean for about a day and that was years ago, but she was still the best choice. While Yugi managed to remember things from Atem’s point of view during that time period, Atem hadn’t exactly been focused on other people. Still, despite her worries and the quality of the photo taken with Mai’s phone, Téa was able to quickly draw the comparison.

“Yeah, she looks way too much like Chris to be a coincidence. I think we can trust her about that. So, Crystal, are you able to tell us anything else about this Mahado that gave you the cards? ‘American’ doesn’t really do anything to narrow it down, and we need to talk with him.”

Crystal’s voice acquired a hard edge. “Okay, in my experience, whenever an adult says ‘we need to talk’ something bad always happens. Either I’m a monster for hurting other kids, I should never touch a duel monsters card again, I’m getting moved to yet another home since they don’t want to deal with me anymore. Why should I bother telling you about one of the only people in my life who saw what I can do and didn’t think I was a freak? He actually is helping me learn how to control my gift, so if you’re trying to do anything against him, I’m not going to help you. You may have beaten me in a duel, but that doesn’t mean I automatically have to go along with everything you say.”

Yugi was quick to cut in. “That’s not what we mean at all. I don’t mean to sound like we’re accusing Mahado, but he’s really the only lead we have. It sounds like there’s a rogue group of people misusing abilities like yours, and maybe Mahado will know more about them. A few months ago, we saw someone from Industrial Illusions get their duel spirit attacked, and now we’re seeing cards in use that would never have been re-released. Rebecca almost died due to accidentally finding a copy of the Winged Dragon of Ra, and now you have the Legendary Knights. We know something strange is happening and some people are making it dangerous. We just want to find out what is happening, so we can stop the violence. I spent some time with Timaeus, and Joey spent some time with Hermos—why don’t you ask them if we can be trusted?”

Crystal huffed. “Fine. They’ve been bugging me to try and talk with you anyway for a while, and they never liked Mahado. Unfortunately, I can’t help much. I have a phone he calls me on, but he always uses a different number to make the calls. He said he ran into a lot of problems when he was younger that made him that paranoid. The next time he calls, I’ll talk with him about setting up a meeting with you. As for a physical description, he’s around two meters tall, has shoulder length dark brown hair, and if I had to guess at his ethnicity, I’d say he’s mainly Middle Eastern.”

Mokuba responded. “Thanks for that. Do you know anybody else Mahado has worked with? If you aren’t the only person, maybe we can get in contact with other people as well and get a phone call set up that way. Anything helps.”

Crystal took a few seconds before replying. “Well, I know there’s a few other people, but he didn’t usually mention names. I got the feeling it was less than ten, but the only name I know is Evelyn. And the only other person I interacted with was Jamaal, who helped me tweak my deck to better include the Legendary Knights after I got them. He’s a black American, probably a little under 200 centimeters, with short black hair and glasses.”

Téa thought that sounded familiar, and apparently, she wasn’t the only one. Rebecca sent out a chat message to everyone but Mai, saying they would need to talk with Crystal off of the phone. Whatever Rebecca wanted to say would probably paint Mahado in a bad light, so it would be best to say it without Crystal listening in. Somebody must have texted Mai’s phone to give that message to her as well, as she quickly switched to trying to end the conversation.

“Well, I just realized a bit of a problem. Someone from the hotel is going to be coming by shortly, and I really don’t know how I’m going to explain Crystal’s presence here. I’d rather not spend time in prison for kidnapping, so we’re going to need to see what we can do on our end. I know Valon’s working at an orphanage, so maybe he can help. Crystal, you’d probably like him. Of course, he’s probably going to want to get into another fist fight with Hermos, but I’m sure that’s better than the alternative. Talk to everyone later!”

Rebecca wasted no time on Mai’s abrupt exit. “Okay, so this Mahado is definitely the guy we are after. I thought it sounded familiar, and Crystal just confirmed it. When I was doing some digging on Jamaal Williams after the tournament, I found a rather strange recent job where he was working as a consultant with a travelling magic act. I thought it was nothing relevant since it was a single illusionist and didn’t seem relevant to real magic, but the stage name of that illusionist is ‘The Great Mahado.’ If this is someone who can make duel spirits have physical effects, it stands to reason he’d have someone who could chain up Yako’s duel spirit and at some point manipulate him to release all these new cards.”

Téa could practically hear Joey’s smirk as he chimed in. “Well, it sounds like we know exactly who to take down before they do anything crazy this time. So, do we have a real name and address for this guy?”

Rebecca coughed over the line. “Not off the top of my head, no. Shouldn’t be too hard to find, though. And that’s with perfectly legal means as well, instead of always relying on me.”

Before anybody could respond, a beep cut through the call, signaling a new person had joined.

“Now really, Kaiba boy, did you have to break into my office? I understand you recently had an otherworldly experience, but in this world, when someone doesn’t answer your calls and locks their door, it usually means they have more important things to talk about.”

“Now, where’s the fun in that? You used to enjoy our meetings where you would yank my chain to fly halfway around the world, and then you would mention some super-powerful card you made. Well, it seems like you forgot that step this time. Would you mind explaining to Yugi and the others on the line exactly why Industrial Illusions thought it was a good idea to reprint the Winged Dragon of Ra and turn it loose so any random person could draw its wrath?”

“Wait, what?” Pegasus took a second to compose himself before continuing. “By ‘others,’ I assume you mean people who are a bit more in the know than usual, and whom can be trusted to keep certain things secret. Is that correct?” It sounded like Kaiba gave a derisive snort in response, but he must have nodded because Pegasus continued.

“First off, I don’t really have the level of control over the company that I used to, so there are things that happen that I am not aware of. Still, there are certain cards I’ve made a rule never to reprint or release—and as of two days ago, I found out someone broke that rule. However, I haven’t looked too much into it, as at the time the news that there were more Blue-Eyes White Dragons in the world was a bit less important than the fact my son is currently missing.”

There was a sharp intake of breath over the line, followed by a large exhale. Mokuba could tell his brother was trying not to let the revelation over the existence of more Blue-Eyes take away from the current situation. “Well, it’s a good thing for you that what I came here for is undoubtedly related. Why don’t you tell us what you’ve found in your investigation, and we’ll tell you what we found in ours.”

“Well, you’re being unusually cooperative. Would you mind giving me the number to call in on? I’d rather not have to yell to be heard on the other end of the line, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want me listening in to the speaker in your ear.”

“Well, if you weren’t ignoring our calls and emails, you’d see you already have it.”

Mokuba rolled his eyes—even with his desire to try and make more friends Seto was all too quick to fall on old habits. He supposed that since they had started out at a level of trying to kill each other, biting comments were still a world of improvement between the two gaming tycoons. It took a few seconds for Pegasus to officially join in the call, but then he started his explanation.

“Quite frankly, we were only aware that Yako was in danger when he slipped a message out to Gwyneth. Apparently, she had quite a bad experience posing for one of my pieces of artwork, and the package contained Duel Monsters cards—curiously, all designed to support the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Chief among these was a card that used the exact artwork that all my children refer to as ‘the cry for help.’ As this was the only thing in the envelope, she worried Yako wasn’t able to communicate in any other way—which seems to be the case, as he’s been missing for quite some time. We managed to identify a private jet set to fly to an airstrip in Nevada that likely brought him to America, but that plane was paid for through a shell company that is to this point untraceable. Gwyneth is still working on it, but that’s all we know.”

Mokuba was ready to cut in with his side of the information, but Seto cut in first. “Do you really not understand why the cards were all Blue-Eyes support? Whoever you are dealing with seems exceptionally well-informed about the same period in Egyptian history that’s become a fixture of our lives. Just as Yugi is the present-day version of Atem, and I’m the present-day version of the Pharaoh Seto, your daughter is the present-day version of the original host of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. I’m surprised you never saw that with that Eye.”

“My Eye didn’t grant me omniscience. Although it probably does explain why I felt inspired to use her as a model for an ancient priestess. Regardless, we can discuss more of my family history later. I’m assuming you have more information other than this involving someone with knowledge of the original Shadow Games. As I’m sure you realize, that doesn’t narrow things down.”

This time Mokuba was able to cut in. “We know the leader goes by the alias Mahado, and is an American who works as a magician. We’ll be able to get his real name soon enough to get an address. It’s important to note that he has an ability to make whatever duel monsters he summons real without any other magical conduit—or at least, he’s able to teach associates of his to better use that power. We know of a few of these associates. First is Jamaal Williams, an American duelist who is a little bit below Rebecca and I on the American circuit, and has no clear deck preference. Since Yugi noticed golden magic affecting Yako’s duel spirit after their duel in the Phoenix Invitational, he’s likely the person who put that spell into place. Then we have Evelyn Viper, a native of the former Yugoslavia who has been living in America since she had her family fled shortly before the country broke up. She used a deck centered on Vennominaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes, and tried to kill Rebecca before ultimately dying to it herself. Lastly, we have Crystal, a British orphan who is apparently the reincarnation of Dartz’s daughter and had a deck featuring the three Legendary Knights.”

Rebecca cut in. “I think we can add my godfather to that list. If Evelyn was there to recover the Winged Dragon of Ra from him, that implies that they had the card, and my godfather ended up with it. I highly doubt that happens without their agreement.” Téa heard a shaking breath over the line before Rebecca continued. “I can’t believe this guy I trusted signed on with these nutjobs, and now we can’t even talk to him about it.”

Joey cut in. “Okay, so we’re dealing with a guy who is likely headquartered in America, he’s got access to people who can make duel monsters real without invoking any other magic, and he has access to likely any card he could think up. At least we’ll be able to get the drop on him. Who’s up for a plane ride and a duel—or if it comes to it, a street fight?”

Mokuba thought he could hear the eyeroll in Pegasus’s voice. “I see your attitude is the same as ever, Joseph. Speaking as someone with perhaps the highest motivation to stop this Mahado quickly, we can’t just rush in. In most of your previous experiences with magical adversaries—including myself—there were rules to the magic that necessitated a duel to decide things. That won’t be the case here, and if it does get into a fight, I’d rather have someone a bit more professional handle it. I may not have my large security force anymore, but I still have contacts that will let me hire some additional muscle. Of course, no amount of hired muscle will be able to deal with a duel monster, so if it comes to that, we’ll need to be ready. Kaiba boy, I believe you are uniquely suited to that task, correct?”

Seto scoffed over the line. “Clearly. How long will it take you to hire the goon squad?” Mokuba couldn’t believe Seto was willing to help so quickly. Usually he would only cooperate with others after arguing against it, or if something directly targeted Seto, Mokuba, or their company. It would still usually take a speech from Yugi or the Pharaoh to accomplish it. Mokuba wondered if it was because of the additional Blue-Eyes White Dragons, or if maybe Seto was doing this because of what had happened to Rebecca. From the constant teasing, his older brother might have started including her as part of the Kaiba family. At that thought, Mokuba started blushing and was glad he wasn’t meeting anyone in person or over video. Nobody noticed, meaning everybody was focused on Pegasus’s answer.

“Well, considering this is a holiday weekend coming up, it will probably be sometime next week. At least we have a distinct advantage in this case: this Mahado has no idea we are looking for him currently, so we should still be able to get the element of surprise on him.”

Mokuba heard Yugi sheepishly respond. “Well, he doesn’t know now, but he might find out soon. From talking with Crystal before, she’s going to let him know we want to talk if he contacts her. I still think that’s a good first step, but if it comes down to it, we’ll be able to surprise him. Let me know when we finalize a date that will happen. Since I’m going to be in New York anyway, I can stop at Mahado’s base on my way back to Japan. Kaiba will have to take the lead, but if both he and Mahado are summoning monsters, I’ll probably be able to piggyback off of that to summon monsters of my own.”

Seto didn’t jump in with a protest, so Mokuba knew he agreed. Pegasus then made sure to get the last word in. “Well, unless anybody has anything else to bring up, I am going to need to get back to what I was doing. I’ll be sure to keep you informed and do more digging into the cards that came out of the Russian office in the past few months. We’ll see if we can identify any other cards that shouldn’t exist, so you can at least be ready if somebody challenges you.”

* * *

Mahado took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Blasting holes in his base wouldn’t really accomplish anything other than forcing a higher repair bill, but his magic was just aching to destroy something. It was difficult to reign in the light when it reached levels like this, but he would have to wait to find somewhere more appropriate to blow off steam after he found a way to redeem the current situation.

At the very least, he had found some justification for some of the more paranoid actions he had taken. If it weren’t for using a bit of his power to spy through all of his associates’ spirits, he would have no idea that Yugi and his friends were in the process of looking for him. That small piece of information in no way offset the losses of the past twenty-four hours, but it at least would allow him to avoid total defeat. He would need to face Yugi in a duel anyway, but the duelist had earned his world championship title. Mahado would be able to win, but only under a certain set of circumstances—and those circumstances would be much harder to pull off with the loss of three of his most skilled associates to either death or betrayal.

As the thought crossed his mind, he realized betrayal was a bit harsh. Crystal hadn’t been brought up to speed on the full aspects of the plan—the eight-year-old obviously wasn’t a great choice to know the full details—so she couldn’t know that her simple conversation was just as bad as a full-fledged betrayal. Raymond and Evelyn, however, had been fully aware, so losing both of them was a major setback. Between their deaths and a series of accidents while testing out certain cards, there were only two people left who knew the full details of his plan, and the twins had their own unique take on things he hadn’t initially approved of. Still, if he wanted to reclaim the missing piece of his soul, it looked like there was no other choice.

Picking up his phone, he dialed first number he could still count among his loyal followers. The recipient answered on the second ring, letting him give a simple message. “Hi Greg, it’s Matt. I was giving some more thought into yours and Lily’s plan, and I think we may be ready to go forward with it. Would the two of you be able to swing by so we can put some of the needed preparation into this?” The speaker immediately agreed—even with the need to keep things somewhat innocuous over the phone, the meaning was obvious. Gregory and Lilith would be by shortly to work out their planned demonic summoning.

* * *

Mahado was surprised to see a fully prepared ritual circle within less than an hour of Lilith and Gregory’s arrival. Clearly, the two were prepared for this even before he gave authorization. Of course, this was only an initial contract. While some of the stories surrounding this particular demon had to be fabricated, it was still obvious not to trust someone with a habit of turning on his pawns. Mahado wasn’t stupid enough to summon a demon without clearly specifying the terms of a contract. While the summoning itself would be a much more involved affair, just communing to the spirit realm would be simpler.

The circle was reminiscent of the Seal of Orichalcos, although the inscriptions on the outside were in Egyptian hieroglyphs instead of the Enochian language. The grammar would have looked strange to a modern Egyptologist, but for someone with a connection to ancient Egypt it would be clear that this was the same language that had been used for the binding magic from the era of the Millennium items. Mahado couldn’t help but be impressed at the lengths his associates had gone to meet their own goals. Even if he didn’t agree with causing a demonic invasion of Earth in principle, he had to respect the twins’ single-minded determination. It was much better to ally yourself with people like that than to stand in their way.

With the circle prepared, Lilith and Gregory began going through the incantation to bring forth a powerless version of the intended recipient to their location. In a way, it was the magical equivalent to a phone call, but it was the only way to communicate directly with a spirit that didn’t have a corresponding card. Considering the being they were calling had a penchant for betraying his allies and attempting to devour humanity, it was the best way to safely negotiate terms of a contract before actually bringing the being to the physical realm.

Lilith and Gregory finished their chanting, causing both of their bodies to be encased in a green glow as their life force began sustaining the link to the spirit world. In the center of the circle, a tall man with a black beard wearing red and gold armor materialized, though he was still transparent. Mahado quickly bowed his head and addressed the spirit.

“Greetings. If I am correct, you are the Card Majin, known alternatively as Dark Nite or Nitemare. What would you prefer to be called?” The apparition’s eyes were hidden behind its helmet, but Mahado could feel them staring through his soul. The spirit seemed to find something amusing, as it chuckled before responding in a booming voice.

“Well, I admit this is new for me. Usually those that try to invoke my presence have fallen prey to the darkness in their souls, and are thus easily manipulated. You, however, have no darkness in your soul. This is the first time a human has called on me completely of their own free will. In this form, you may refer to me as Dark Nite—it is this guise that makes it easier to work outside of my own domain. Now, to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”

Internally, Mahado sighed in relief—it sounded like this demon was willing to negotiate. Of course, it didn’t pay to show that emotion at the start of discussing terms. After all, whether it came to business negotiations or magic tricks, it paid to keep the audience unaware of your true feelings. “I’ve worked with my associates to summon you precisely because my soul is missing its darkness. Half of my soul is trapped within a contract to another master, and the only way to complete myself is to defeat that other master in a shadow game and forcibly reclaim my spirit. I have run into a few setbacks when trying to rely on more earthly means of attaining my goal, so my two associates recommended I look towards someone much stronger for help. Of course, I did not want to wish to impose any terms upon you, so I thought it best to discuss those terms first to ensure they were agreeable.”

Dark Nite smirked. “You may be more resistant to my abilities than other humans, but I can still read your hidden emotions. However, even though you are fully aligned with the light, you have not yet been completely swayed to its appetite for destruction. Despite your hidden desperation, I shall be willing to listen your terms to determine if we will make a pact.”

Mahado nodded his head. “Before we begin, I want to set the understanding that the spell to bring you to this world will be bound to the terms of the contract. If you ever break the contract, you will be automatically banished from this world. The contract will be binding for as long as I am alive. As such, we get to the first term: you will not, through either action or intentional inaction, make any moves with the purpose of shortening my life. I’m not expecting you or a servant of yours to watch over me or extend my life in any way—and it shouldn’t make much of a difference to an eternal being like you whether or not you need to wait fifty or so years to attain your freedom.”

Mahado paused for breath before continuing. “The second condition is another limitation. I know it is well within your power to consume the entirety of the human race over the course of a few years, but I have no desire to live out my life as the last free human. As such, you will limit your destruction. You won’t harm those who are loyal to my cause, and you will not bring the population down below one billion for the course of the contract.”

Dark Nite interrupted. “You seem to be basing much of this contract on what I will not be able to do. You would not have summoned me unless there were things that you need me to do. What will be my end of the bargain?”

Mahado couldn’t help the smirk that came to his face. “I would have thought an immortal being like you would be able to have a little bit more patience. I only have two demands. The first involves my associates. I realize that the spell to bring you to Earth requires human sacrifice, and both of their lives will be forfeit. However, we have worked well together, and they have a request you will grant them. They are partnered with powerful duel spirits in Tragoedia and Seven-Armed Fiend. The condition will be that even though their human bodies will die, their duel spirits will be allowed to serve in your army.”

Dark Nite sighed. “With how easy your conditions to this point have been, I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll be able to accomplish your true goal. You wouldn’t be summoning me unless there was a need, and nothing you’ve said comes anywhere close to that need.”

Mahado nodded. “As I said, I need to defeat a certain person in order to reclaim half of my soul. However, that person is beyond my skill level to defeat if he is playing at his highest level. He’s a veteran of many shadow games, but he draws a great amount of power from his friends. If they were to suffer a tragedy, he would be knocked off of his game, and I would be able to defeat him. Unfortunately, many of his friends are nearly as skilled as he is, so that is what you will need to do. You will be tasked with ensuring that Yugi Muto’s friends are eliminated.”

A maelstrom of darkness burst from Dark Nite for a few seconds before it faded to the spirit’s laughter. “Now I see why you are summoning me. I have faced this Yugi Muto and his friends before, and I’ve been longing for a chance at revenge. However, I must warn you: I may not be able to completely fulfil your request. Seto Kaiba and Yugi Muto fought me together and managed to vanquish me in our last encounter. I shall send my forces to deal with the others, but Seto Kaiba will require my personal attention. I will not make the same mistake of underestimating him again, so there is a chance I may not be victorious. Otherwise, I agree to the terms you outline.”

Mahado bowed his head. “Very well, although with that caveat I have one of my own. You will at the very least keep Seto Kaiba busy, and you will focus entirely on taking out Yugi’s friends before turning yourself loose on the rest of the population. You can use whatever means you can think of to get closer to this goal, and we will establish a method of communication, so if you are banished again, I can re-summon you. I’ll begin work on the summoning ritual immediately, although it will likely take a day to fully prepare.”

With a nod to his associates, they terminated the connection, causing Dark Nite’s spirit to fade away. A small part of Mahado would miss his loyal followers, but they had always wanted to focus on something beyond the human condition. The best way to reward them for their loyalty would be to complete this ritual that would allow them to transcend humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently despite appearing in three different video games as the main villain, AO3 doesn't have a specific tag for Dark Nite/Nitemare as a character as of this posting. And while he appears in Forbidden Memories and Dark Duel Stories, this is specifically the version from The Falsebound Kingdom. Mainly because I haven't played Forbidden Memories, and Dark Duel Stories doesn't really have a plot.
> 
> There is a slight difference in this story version and the game version, though. In the game, you play as a single protagonist (Yugi or Kaiba), and while the other protagonist supposedly joins you just before the final boss, they aren't involved and you get a one on one fight against an Egyptian God (Yugi fights Obelisk while Kaiba fights Slifer). I tweaked the ending so that Nitemare summoned both gods and Yugi and Kaiba (and all their supporting casts) worked together to take them both out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea is looking forward to a nice relaxing Valentine's Day with Yugi. Dark Nite quickly proves that his own plans take precedence.

Téa couldn’t help but shake her head in amusement as Nina and Natalie picked through their breakfast food. Of course, most people wouldn’t be eating breakfast at nine P.M., but this was the price someone paid to maintain a relationship across a thirteen-hour time difference. Téa had a lot of practice adjusting her bodily clock for whenever Yugi was able to fly in, but her friends didn’t quite have the same level of practice. While Téa was treating this as an actual breakfast after a good four-hour nap and would likely be up past sunrise once Yugi arrived, her friends had eaten dinner earlier and were only planning on sticking around for a couple of hours after Yugi’s flight arrived.

Téa reached for her tea, only for a shiver to come over her that caused the mug to rattle against the table. It was only after a few moments afterwards that she realized it wasn’t her hand shaking it, since all of the dishes in the restaurant were shaking. Everyone else was shocked by this, but Téa’s thoughts were elsewhere. An earthquake in New York was a rare occurrence, but as someone who grew up in Japan, Téa was used to minor tremors like this. What she couldn’t figure out was why there was suddenly a chill and a feeling of almost electricity in the air. The feeling was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Those worries were driven out of her mind at a series of rumblings cut through the air. It was too deep to be a fireworks display—especially considering it was February—and it sounded different than thunder. Suddenly, multiple people’s phones started buzzing with an emergency message, and it didn’t take long for the panicked screams to start as people began running from the building. Nina started muttering “Please not again…” under her breath, and Téa quickly tried to calm her friend down.

“Okay, we know something is happening, but we don’t know what. It’s pointless to run out into the panic without knowing what we are running from—or even what direction we should be running. Let’s figure that out before we decide how to react.” Luckily, this seemed to get through to Nina, and there were other patrons in the restaurant with a similar idea. A middle-aged man had a portable radio, and turned it on only to catch the middle of an emergency broadcast.

As she heard the information, Téa couldn’t help having some of the color drain from her face. While the full details were unknown, a series of explosions was ripping through the neighborhood where she lived. If she hadn’t gone out to eat, she might have been caught in ground zero. More chilling was the order to evacuate all of Manhattan in an orderly fashion with a warning that hysteria and panic—such as multiple reports of a demon being responsible—would only worsen the situation.

Knowing that they’d have to leave, Téa started heading out, making sure Nina and Natalie were coming along. Along the way, she couldn’t help but glance toward her apartment, and in the distance, she could see little orange balls of light form on top of one of the nearby buildings before they flew to other areas. The corresponding flash of light and later rumble meant they were what was exploding—but for a second Téa thought she could make out the source as a figure standing on top of the building. The light then faded. Téa hoped she had just imagined it, because it looked like a giant humanoid with too many arms was causing this. With the distance she couldn’t be sure, and she had more important things to worry about at the moment.

The next couple of minutes were spent in a tense silence as Téa and her friends quickly walked towards the nearest bridge out of Manhattan, balancing a need to escape quickly with saving energy in case they got into a situation where they would actually need to run. Téa had been in life-threatening danger often enough to know escaping was usually more of a marathon than a sprint, and she hadn’t needed to go into details to convince Nina and Natalie to reign in their panic. However, that lesson wasn’t destined to last, as Natalie turned a corner only to immediately freeze, causing Téa to bump into her.

Natalie didn’t react to the contact, and when Téa looked beyond her she could immediately understand why. Standing before her was a skeleton encased in silver armor with a curved sword that Téa knew was supposed to be red, but Natalie probably thought was coated in blood. Téa immediately grabbed her friends and started running down a different alley, but the clanking of armor let her know the Skull Knight 2 was now in pursuit. Back when she was fighting against Alexander the Great, she had been able to mow down hundreds of these enemies—but that was with the support of Dark Witch and Seiyaryu. Now that she only had the combined strength of three humans, any duel monster was a much harder obstacle to overcome.

Téa at least didn’t have to pull her friends along for long. The three began making turns down multiple alleyways trying to lose their pursuer, but from the sound of things, the Skull Knight 2 was gaining on them. Seeing a pile of trashcans in the latest alleyway, Téa took a gamble. She stopped running and knocked the trashcans over just as the Skull Knight 2 rounded the corner. The fiend stumbled on the obstacles, which gave Téa enough room to knock it to the ground. Its sword clattered out of its hand, and Téa immediately grabbed it before continuing to sprint after her friends. A small part of her had wanted to make use of her newly acquired weapon and take out the monster, but the rest of her knew that wasn’t a great idea. Her knowledge of how to handle a sword basically boiled down to ‘hit them with the sharpened side’, and considering her opponent was wearing full armor, she doubted she’d be able to inflict any lasting damage before the fiend reclaimed its sword. It was much better to deprive the monster of its weapon and continue the escape.

However, the best of plans didn’t always work out, as Téa realized when she turned another corner only to find a dead end. Nina was currently boosting Natalie up to reach a fire escape—it probably wasn’t the best option for an escape route, but dropping down the ladder would at least give them a little more time to run. Natalie managed to kick the ladder down just as Téa arrived, and Nina paused for a second to stare at Téa’s new sword. However, there wasn’t enough time for that as the Skull Knight 2 came around the corner. Téa quickly scrambled up the ladder, hoping to gain as much height as possible. Running might not work anymore, so it was time to try something stupid.

As soon as the Skull Knight 2 arrived at the base of the fire escape, Téa jumped off of the second-floor landing and landed blade-first on the duel monster. As an aspiring dancer, Téa liked to think she was good at gracefully landing if she ever fell, but that grace didn’t quite translate when she tried to use gravity as a means of attack. While the blade did cleave through the fiend’s armor, Téa awkwardly rolled both of her ankles with the landing and also slammed onto her knees, leaving her lying on the ground doing her best not to scream in pain. The only consolation was Skull Knight 2 faded into shadows, meaning her reckless move should have at least saved her friends.

However, the feeling of joy faded away quickly when a section of the alley wall she was facing turned black, and a new figure stepped out of the void. It was similar to Skull Knight 2, except instead of being a skeleton wearing armor, this figure was wearing armor made of skeletons. The taller Skull Knight smirked at her, although the look soon vanished into a grimace of pain when another figure fell into the scene. It appeared to be a tall woman with auburn hair, although Téa had to question where exactly she had fallen from, why she didn’t seem to have any ill effects from her own plunging attack, and why someone would decide to wear an incredibly short skirt, a backless top, and a fluttering white sash that was only connected to bands around their biceps before jumping onto a skeleton.

The questions only kept coming when a gravelly voice swore from the entrance to the alleyway. “Shit—Téa, grab this!” A sharp jolt to her arm joined the pain in her legs as something hit her, but Téa managed to grab it and see it was twisted blue staff with a mushroom-like head. This was all she could see before there was a brilliant yellow flash and a feeling akin to being hit by a water balloon. When her eyes cleared, she heard a bestial snarl before what looked like a dinosaur-human hybrid slammed a battleax into the Skull Knight, decapitating it and causing its body to melt into shadow. Between this new creature, the voice from before, and the woman from earlier slowly recovering against a different wall wearing butterfly-shaped armor, Téa finally had an answer for what was happening. It wasn’t a surprise when Rafael knelt down beside her and tried to help her up.

“Thanks for the save, Rafael. What exactly is this staff thing you gave me? It seemed to—” Téa was cut off by a sharp stab of pain lancing up her leg—even resting most of her body weight on Rafael it seemed like she wouldn’t be able to walk anytime soon. Rafael seemed to notice this and worked to set her back down in a more comfortable position.

“It’s my Guardian Kay’est’s Rod of Silence. In the game it protects its wielder from spell cards, but apparently in whatever magical mayhem we’re currently caught in it shields from magical attacks as well. Good thing too, since we’re nowhere near as sturdy as duel monsters, and that attack did a number on Elma.”

Téa gulped a little at the fact her survival was apparently due to a lucky guess, but she continued on regardless. “Well, I guess that explains the weird feeling I’ve been having lately—I thought it was familiar, and it must be from all the times I was exposed to the Shadow Realm or the Seal of Orichalcos. Also, is there supposed to be a voice coming from your staff?” What had started as mere buzzing in her ears had solidified more into a voice that Téa felt calling to her, although she wasn’t able to recognize the language. The staff she was holding seemed to start drawing something from her, and acting on impulse, she thrust it forward.

She suddenly felt as if she had run a marathon, but the tradeoff was the appearance of a giant ball of green light. The glow started fading, and Téa could make out butterfly wings—although at around three feet tall, the wings clearly didn’t belong to a normal insect. Finally, the glow faded enough for Téa to recognize the source—a green fairy hovering before her. Téa recognized the monster as one of her strongest cards before she had stopped dueling, as well as one of the monsters that had served under her when she was trapped in the Kingdom game. Fairy’s Gift raised her arms and Téa felt a blue light wash over her, re-energizing her and removing much of the pain she was feeling. She got to her feet with a slight wince, but at least she was able to stand again.

She was ready to go and take the fight to the likely source, but Nina and Natalie seemed to have recovered from the recent ordeal enough to ask what all of this actually meant. Téa sighed, but knew she’d have to at least fill her friends in on the basics. “Okay, I promise I can go into all of the details later, but even the short version is going to sound crazy. I guess you could say this all started in high school, where I got first-hand experience that magic is real…”

* * *

Dark Nite couldn’t help the smirk that crossed his face. It had been so long since he had free reign over Earth that he had forgotten the feeling of euphoria that came from having so many human souls to feed on. Even though he was currently confined to his weaker form, he would soon be able to unlock the full scope of his powers—as well as implement some plans of his own. While his current contract was more than agreeable, he had learned his lesson after a handful of defeats and would ensure he couldn’t be sealed away for millennia again.

Of course, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy himself now. He had specific targets, as well as two new powerful servants to use. It wasn’t hard to decide where to dispatch the first of them. After all, the whole point of this was to push Yugi to the breaking point, and Scott had shown just how well Yugi reacted when the one called Téa was placed in the line of fire. While his senses were a bit muddled between his recent emergence on Earth and his quick defeat in Kingdom, he was still able to determine a general area for a few of the fighters. As such, he knew the general location of Téa, and he could sense Yugi rapidly approaching the same area. He sent the spirit of Seven-Armed Fiend to intercept—after all, what better way to hunt down your prey than to send a hunter who could spawn his own minions and read the mind of the enemy?

However, the matter of where to send his other forces was still up for debate. The largest threat was obviously Seto Kaiba, but sending any forces against him would be wasting resources until he could come up with an effective plan of attack. That meant Domino City was effectively a safe zone, one which contained most of his targets. The only other familiar presences were scattered across the world, and it was difficult to pick a single target. If he had to guess which was the biggest threat, he would go with the woman who controlled the Harpies. Without something else jumping at him, he would send Tragoedia after her.

Turning his eyes back to Domino, Dark Nite continued to contemplate how to best gain an advantage against Seto Kaiba. While there was the obvious solution of going after his younger brother, that on its own would not be enough. Unlike Yugi, who had a large number of friends and drew power from those bonds, Kaiba formed fewer bonds and was more willing to resort to extreme measures to protect them. It was a fifty-fifty chance on whether taking Mokuba would make Kaiba more vulnerable or more likely to tear down everything in his way. Considering the information his human partner had provided, Kaiba seemed to be even more powerful than the last time Dark Nite had faced him.

Dark Nite’s eyes widened in shock as his closer scan of Domino revealed another familiar presence from his previous defeats—although not from his most recent one. Instead, this went back to when he was first sealed away, back when he had thought to fill the power vacuum left by Zorc’s sealing. However, the Pharaoh Seto was quick to counter his power play, and, between the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and the Millennium Items, he had been forcibly removed from the Earth. While Seto Kaiba was clearly the reincarnation of the pharaoh, there was different presence in Domino that had the same feeling as the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

This was certainly a strange occurrence, causing Dark Nite to open a portal to Mahado’s location. The magician didn’t seem too surprised at having the demon step into his apartment. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Dark Nite?”

The evil spirit of the cards sighed internally. He never realized how much he enjoyed startling his associates until he made a contract with someone who seemed to always sense his approach. “I was investigating Domino to plan my attack on Seto Kaiba, and I noticed another human who is bound to the soul of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Did you know this?”

Mahado’s aura became agitated. “That woman has been nothing but a thorn in my side for the last few days. She was on my list of candidates for recruitment, but that got put aside after I gained direct access to her brother. He was a priority target, since he had direct access to the card creation process, but he proved highly resistant to my usual methods of control. He even managed to shake off the direct control of Reshef the Dark Being in order to send a message to her, and she has somehow managed to find and infiltrate many of my off-the-record holdings while searching for him. Luckily, she hasn’t yet crossed the Pacific Ocean, and now that we are working together, there is less of a need to deal with her.”

The demon couldn’t help but wonder if his latest partner just liked to hear himself talk. “While that is interesting, I am more curious as to how she is connected to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. The other details make her sound like someone to assassinate rather than someone for me to intervene with.”

“To be honest, we aren’t sure,” Mahado said. “I only know that the connection exists, and that it is somehow due to an ancient version of her. It’s not as though there is any surviving documentation that states exactly how Seto became bonded to the monster. Perhaps you would be able to shed some light on that—I’m assuming the references to the demon faced in the reign of the Pharaoh Seto was referring to you?”

“Yes, that was me, but I had not yet developed my near-omniscience by that point in time. Even now, I am only able to observe those in the present time at my current level of power, and at full power my gaze can only reach through the future, not the past. Still, I may be able to make use of this. I may transfer this prisoner into my custody—assuming such a thing wouldn’t be overstepping the boundaries of my contract?”

Dark Nite barely heard Mahado’s affirmative response as his attention was pulled back to Japan. Apparently, Mokuba Kaiba was leaving Kaiba Corporation headquarters, while Seto Kaiba did not seem to be making any moves. That meant there would be an opening to grab the less skilled fighter—one that he would be foolish not to take. After waiting a few minutes to let more distance develop between the two brothers, the demon opened a portal and stepped into the middle of a crowded Japanese sidewalk.

Dark Nite expected to hear sounds of panic at his appearance—a ten-foot-tall man in golden armor appearing out of nowhere was typically an unusual sign—but instead all her heard were grumbles of annoyance. Even when one person walked into him, the only response was a mumbled, “Great. Bad enough they can fill the parks, but the holograms are solid now as well. Why can’t KaibaCorp just be happy with what they have?”

However, while most of the people seemed to play him off as one of Kaiba Corporation’s holograms, one person clearly knew this wasn’t the case. Mokuba looked at him in surprise for a few seconds before pressing his fingers to his collar and saying, “We have a code Egypt.” He then pointed down a nearby alleyway and turned towards it himself, clearly expecting Dark Nite to follow. Usually, Dark Nite’s targets tried to run or tried to stay in public in an attempt to disappear into the crowd—calmly walking into a less crowded area was a different approach. Still, the longer he delayed, the more likely someone who could stop him appeared, so he followed after the younger Kaiba into the alley.

The alley was a dead end, but Mokuba likely had done that on purpose since he was calmly waiting for Dark Nite. The spirit couldn’t help the curiosity in his voice. “Well, I must admit, you are handling this better than most would. Still, I have to ask—what exactly is the purpose of this Code Egypt?”

The young duelist looked confident, but Dark Nite could sense that he was steeling himself for a confrontation he didn’t expect to win. “Well, after a few too many employees got vaporized in our conflicts with magic users, I set up a rotating system of codes that I could use to communicate to my security detail to let them know they shouldn’t intervene. They’ll take a bullet for me if need be, but they also have higher than normal chance of winning a gun fight and no chance of dealing with magic. I’m not in the business of knowingly letting my employees get slaughtered. Now, I’m afraid I’m not sure what to call you. You’re obviously the final boss of Scott’s video game, but he just called you ‘a dark spirit that feeds on human souls.’ I believe you said it was pointless for us to know your name back then, because it’s pointless for a cow to know the name of its butcher. However, considering we did win that battle, I think I’ve at least earned that right.”

Dark Nite couldn’t believe the impudence of this child, even though he did sense the approach of Seto Kaiba and could at least appreciate the plan. Arrogance, though, had to be punished, and so Dark Nite summoned tendrils of darkness to bind Mokuba’s arms and legs. “Don’t think being on the periphery of a battle where your brother and your friends did most of the work earns you my full respect. However, as I am sure you are transmitting information to your brother as he flies here on what seems like a fully realized Blue-Eyes White Dragon, my current form is Dark Nite. That may serve as my name until I appear in my true form.”

However, Dark Nite’s move had failed to stop his hostage from talking. “Okay, I guess that seems fair. Still, I’ve improved a lot since then. Don’t I at least deserve a chance to earn your respect myself?” Dark Nite could sense an undercurrent of fear, although this human was much better at concealing it than most. That at least was worthy of some commendation, but drawing things out would just allow Seto Kaiba to arrive and ruin the whole point of this exercise. Luckily, Dark Nite had the perfect test and servant to deliver it.

“Very well. I’ll allow you one chance. You may choose any of your monsters, summoned under any condition you like. If that one monster can defeat one of my own in battle, you will have earned my respect and your freedom. If that monster fails to defeat my monster in battle, you become my hostage and remain that way as your brother’s ante in our inevitable clash. After the monster is summoned, no additional effects may be activated. We’ll operate under the typical rules of your card game in determining the battle, so your holograms will be just as viable as my spirits.”

Dark Nite could sense the competitive fire flaring to life in his hostage. That was even more impressive, considering the last time Dark Nite had shown his servants, it had been in the form of two Egyptian Gods. Dark Nite relaxed his power and freed Mokuba’s hands, allowing him to summon his monster. The young duelist slotted two cards into the back row of his duel disk.

“You said I could summon this monster under any condition, so I’ll use Cybernetic Fusion Support and Power Bond as the summoning tools. Then, I’ll fuse together my three Cyber Dragons, three Cyber Dragon Dreis, three Cyber Dragon Cores, two Cyber Dragon Zweis, two Cyber Kirins, two Cyber Valleys, two Cyber Phoenixes, and Cyber Eltanin to summon Chimeratech Overdragon! Its original attack is 800 points multiplied by the number of monsters used to summon it, and that attack is doubled thanks to Power Bond. Thanks to Cybernetic Fusion Support, I was able to use eighteen materials, so my Overdragon will have 28800 attack points.”

Dark Nite couldn’t help but be impressed at the massive mechanical hydra that appeared, with eighteen different heads all charging up different plasma beams trained on him in a clear threat. The spirit was almost disappointed that it was all for nothing. This was a summon that would be able to defeat the Egyptian Gods in battle barring some unusual setup—but Dark Nite had new gods that answered to him.

“Well, that is impressive. Unfortunately for you, my monster will have 28900 attack points. I call forth the Wicked Avatar!” Dark Nite’s aura condensed into a pitch-black sphere that dwarfed Mokuba’s hydra. The wicked god then morphed into a form that was a mirror of Mokuba’s monster except for its color and slight size advantage. Of course, that was all cosmetic, and all that really mattered was the Wicked Avatar’s ability to always be the strongest monster in play—at one point it had been by a single attack point, but now the monster had been re-released with a more typical 100 point advantage over the strongest other monster on the field.

The black hydra’s blasts overpowered the mechanical monster, destroying it completely. Dark Nite did at least respect the fact that Mokuba didn’t try to run in his last second of freedom. He summoned more bonds of darkness that completely enveloped the young duelist before spiriting him away to the Shadow Realm for temporary safekeeping. He would return the boy unharmed shortly, but it wouldn’t pay to have Seto Kaiba stage a rescue attempt before Dark Nite could finish setting up his trap. Speaking of Seto Kaiba, Dark Nite warped away from the scene while leaving a fragment of his consciousness in an illusory copy of himself. This precaution proved to be needed as a few seconds later a blast of white lightning tore through the space he had occupied and blasted a hole through the pavement.

Dark Nite chuckled through his body double at the duelist currently riding a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. “Well, I must admit you’ve only grown more impressive since our last meeting. Unlike last time, you had to summon that dragon on your own, and that attack still would have caused me some serious damage.”

The billionaire sent Dark Nite enough of a glare that promised more pain than his pharaoh incarnation had inflicted. “I believe I told you last time that you needed to go back to the fairy tale you crawled out of. Return Mokuba unharmed, and I’ll let you off just as easy. Otherwise, I’ll destroy you so completely you won’t even be able to exist within a fairy tale.”

“Well, I’m glad you have that attitude, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. However, I will leave your brother unharmed until I finish setting up my game. I’m close to returning to my full power, and I’d rather test my mettle against you at my best. Once I return to my true form, you may call me Nitemare, and I will raise a castle outside of the city. I will be holding Mokuba hostage in the center of that castle, and you will need to either overpower or avoid my defenses in order to reach me. Defeat me within two hours after the castle is raised, and you will be able to save a life. Otherwise, every human within the castle will die. However, do not expect this to be easy. In fact, here’s a little teaser of what you can expect.”

Dark Nite summoned one of his minions, a black-armored warrior wielding two swords. The monster appeared directly above the duelist, falling onto his dragon and shoving Kaiba to the ground. In the modern card game, Dark Blade was a fairly unimpressive normal monster, but in a real Shadow Game, it had more tricks up its sleeve. Instead of being a mere piece of flavor text, the warrior’s ability to manipulate dragons was fully usable to take control of Kaiba’s flagship monster as an additional hostage. It seemed such measures were needed, considering the duelist showed impressive reaction time. Before he hit the ground, he summoned Peten the Dark Clown, and the spellcaster used its teleportation abilities to bring Kaiba to a safe landing. Still, the delay was all Dark Nite needed to banish his illusion and turn his attention to other matters.

However, the next step in preparation carried far less risk and less need for theatrics. The woman with a connection to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon was taking a nap, and entering a human’s dreams was child’s play for Nitemare and his armies. Without the personal history with this human to draw on, Dark Nite was able to put a much simpler message in her head. By the time she woke up, she would remember that her brother was being held hostage in a castle, and that she would need to infiltrate the castle in order to rescue him. It would be interesting watching these two humans both attempt to rescue their brothers—even if one would have a much more difficult path. After all, it wouldn’t pay to have one of the weapons against Seto Kaiba perish against his castle defenses before she could be of use.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamaal confronts Mahado about the sudden turn in their plans, while Mai and Crystal find themselves on the front lines of a monster attack.

Jamaal descended into Mahado’s base of operations, hoping for all the world that his instincts were wrong. However, considering he always took pride in his instincts, this was a new situation for him.. His duel spirits were only agreeing with his instincts, which he could only tell thanks to finally figuring out the obvious solution to their communication gap. However, despite sometimes missing the simple solution, the current problem was clear: Tragoedia and Seven-Armed Fiend were attacking Calais and New York, respectively. This could only be the work of the self-proclaimed demon twins. The only question remaining was if they had gone rogue, or if Mahado had somehow authorized this mission.

Jamaal wanted to believe it was the former, if only to avoid implicating Mahado in the carnage. The man had done so much for him in showing him the existence of duel spirits. It was hard to see his mentor in anything other than the best light. Sure, he kept some strange associates, they all had justifications for their beliefs. Many of these people had faced persecution because they had a strong bond with duel spirits, which often manifested in unintentionally making monsters solid and sending opponents to the hospital or worse. Society was good enough at keeping groups of people marginalized without needing a reason, so things were bound to get worse when there was a reason to discriminate.

However, that could all change if people were willing to look beyond the surface and give someone a chance, even if their personal history suggested otherwise. Jamaal had only managed to turn his life around thanks to the effort of a few social workers, and he saw that same potential in Mahado. If he could help in the goal of making psychic duelists more accepted by society, he’d be paying back the kindness he had been shown. The only true way to make progress was to stop vilifying psychic duelists, to help them along, and to instill a desire to improve themselves. Mahado was giving them that, and to this point Jamaal had been willing to overlook many of the more violent goals of those he was helping.

Still, there was a difference between wanting to get revenge and attacking entire cities full of innocent people. Mahado was the most powerful psychic duelist, able to exert his magic on the duel spirits of others. If the demon twins had gone rogue, he had the best chance of being able to stop them. If he somehow signed off on this, then Jamaal would have to do everything he could to change Mahado’s mind—or stop him if that became necessary. If so, Jamaal felt fairly confident in his ability to win. While Mahado vastly outstripped him in magical ability, he wasn’t a tournament caliber duelist. Jamaal had personally worked with everyone else helping develop strategies and tweak decks for the optimum performance, but Mahado had never expressed interest in any lessons and seemed to have only a surface level understanding of the game. Against Jamaal’s latest lockdown deck, he likely wouldn’t be able to do anything, and psychic duelists all shared a weakness that losing a duel severely crippled their powers for a time, making them much more likely to comply with any demands.

Jamaal hoped such measures wouldn’t be necessary, but those hopes where dashed when he entered Mahado’s base. It was hard to find an innocent explanation for what appeared to be a twelve-foot tall skeleton wearing blue and gold armor without any sign of an active duel disk or reason for Mahado to summon a monster. Mahado’s words to his guest only made things worse.

“Very well, Nitemare. As we agreed, you may take custody of the prisoner. I hope you are able to make good use of him.” With that, the other being—likely Nitemare—disappeared into a swirling vortex of darkness, leaving Jamaal alone with Mahado. The evidence was damning, but Jamaal was willing to give Mahado one last chance to explain himself.

“Please tell me I misheard you when you called that other being ‘Nitemare.’ That would imply he’s the demon the twins wanted to use to cause an apocalypse, and that you are working with him voluntarily and okay with the destruction of New York and Calais.”

Mahado shrugged. “Well, it would only be insulting to you if I tried to deny it. Yes, that is the very same demon. I was hoping to keep our pact a secret until I was sure you could understand the necessity of sacrifice, but it seems I have no choice now.”

Jamaal clenched his fists. “Necessity of sacrifice? You say that like this is just some game of Duel Monsters. We are talking about entire cities. Millions of people could be dying right now—and that’s ignoring the demon that played a key role in a doomsday scenario! You can’t just sacrifice all of humanity!”

“I haven’t. As part of this deal, a small fraction of humanity will survive until I die. By that point, those who remain will either have adapted to the change and be worthy of survival, or they won’t. Humanity will be forced to improve, and I’ll be able to achieve my goal. You’ll be able to help me with that—you should be a good warmup for my next duel.”

Jamaal took a deep breath to try to calm himself down and not just charge Mahado in a rage. “Fine, I’ll duel you, but when I win, you are going to call back the twins, undo your contract with Nitemare, and get back to trying to improve the world instead of trashing it!”

Jamaal had never seen Mahado truly angry before, but his glare now seemed to indicate he had finally crossed that line. “That preachy attitude is why I never trusted you with any of the truly important missions. You served me well for a time, but if you continue to act like this, I’ll just have to shut you up myself. It’s time to duel!”

It stung knowing his respect for Mahado was nowhere near reciprocated, but Jamaal supposed he was at least getting what he wanted when Mahado challenged him to a duel. He activated his duel disk and drew his opening hand, which consisted of Magician’s Valkyria, Chocolate Magician Girl, Magical Dimension, Secret Sanctuary of the Spellcasters, and Broken Blocker. It was almost the perfect setup, although it might be difficult to avoid tipping his hand before he could pull off the full lockdown. Still, he had an advantage, and he was going to press it.

“I’ll go first.” Jamaal drew Dark Magician Girl, which only further enabled his plan. “Now, I summon Chocolate Magician Girl in attack mode! By her effect, I then discard Dark Magician Girl to draw an additional card!” More than just getting additional draw power, discarding Dark Magician Girl also served to enable Chocolate Magician Girl’s more potent effect. With Dark Magician Girl in the graveyard, Chocolate Magician Girl could defend herself from attacks by summoning a Spellcaster from the graveyard, redirecting the attack to the summoned monster, and cutting the attacking monster’s strength in half. However, upon drawing Terraforming, that didn’t seem as relevant. Jamaal now had what he needed to pull off a crushing lockdown.

“I activate Terraforming to add Secret Village of the Spellcasters from my deck to my hand. I then activate this field spell, altering the rules of this game. As long as I control a Spellcaster, you won’t be able to activate any spell cards unless you also control a Spellcaster. But the lockdown doesn’t stop there. I then activate Secret Sanctuary of the Spellcasters! If I control a spell card and you don’t, any non-Spellcaster monster summoned to your field cannot attack or activate its effects on the turn its summoned. This card does get destroyed if I don’t control a Spellcaster, but with my Chocolate Magician Girl protecting herself from attacks and my Sanctuary and Village protecting her from monster effects and spells, that isn’t likely to happen. I’ll then set two cards face down and end my turn.”

Magical Dimension and Broken Blocker appeared on the field, which had changed thanks to Jamaal’s two earlier cards. Instead of standing in a stone room, they were now dueling in the middle of an enchanted forest, with huts blending in to large trees bearing balls of light as if they were fruit. In the center of this forest was a clearing with a recessed floor and a silver statue serving as a shrine. Chocolate Magician Girl looked right at home in her new surroundings, but she seemed taken aback when Mahado started laughing as he drew his card.

“This is too good. You are coming at me with a lockdown deck, but your strategy has two glaring flaws. First of which: your lockdown now has some specific conditions that are all too easy for me to exploit. I summon Legion, the Fiend Jester in attack mode!” The wooden puppet decorated like a clown appeared on the field, and Jamaal realized he was likely facing one of the worst possible matchups for his deck. Mahado’s Fiend Jester was a Spellcaster monster with two different effects that both supported other Spellcasters, meaning Mahado’s deck likely had many Spellcasters. That would render Secret Village and Secret Sanctuary essentially useless.

Mahado’s next move only drove the point home further. “Now that I can play spell cards, I activate Dark Magical Circle! This continuous spell allows me to banish one card you control when a Dark Magician is summoned to my field. But when it’s first activated, it also lets me look at the top three cards of my deck, add either a Dark Magician or a spell or trap that lists Dark Magician to my hand, and rearrange the remaining cards however I want.” The golden circle of arcane glyphs appeared behind Mahado, who took one of the cards from the top of his deck and added it to his hand. It was likely a trap card, seeing as Mahado then set it on the field before ending his turn.

Jamaal drew Defender the Magical Knight and pondered his next move. Attacking Legion would only allow Mahado to add a Spellcaster type Normal monster from his deck to his hand, and with Dark Magic Circle on the field it wasn’t hard to guess that would be the Dark Magician. However, leaving Legion on the field would let Mahado use its other effect to tribute summon a Spellcaster as an additional normal summon on a turn, making high-level Spellcasters even easier to summon. With his current field, he would be able to withstand Dark Magic Circle’s effect, so Jamaal decided to take a gamble and try to inflict some damage.

“I summon Defender, the Magical Knight in attack mode!” The blue-armored knight wielding a dagger and a greatshield appeared within the sanctuary, and the gem on his shield illuminated as his effect added a spell counter to the card upon his summon. This would let Jamaal protect one of his Spellcasters from destruction, although it wouldn’t help with banishment from Dark Magical Circle. Jamaal was going to continue his move when Mahado interrupted.

“Well, this seems as good of a time as any to enlighten you to the second major flaw in your plan. Even if I wasn’t using a deck tailored to my own duel spirit that just so happened to get around your lockdown, I have one advantage that you can’t overcome in the game itself. After all, I have a unique skill regarding the duel spirits of others. I may not have been able to directly influence you before because we weren’t able to find your duel spirit, but that’s changed now. The simple reason I couldn’t find your spirit card was because it didn’t exist yet, but I made sure to remedy that situation before Yako betrayed us. Behold your duel spirit, the Silent Magician!”

Mahado snapped his fingers, causing a duel spirit to manifest behind him, although it was clearly not due to the monster’s own will. Once he managed to look past the myriad of golden chains binding her to the wall, Jamaal was able to focus on other aspects of Silent Magician’s appearance. She looked like a midpoint between Silent Magician LV 4 and Silent Magician LV 8, looking in her early twenties. It was the eyes that drew most of Jamaal’s attention, though, as one look at them and Jamaal felt like he was staring into his own soul. The different levels of Silent Magician had felt the closest to him because they were the closest relatives to his true duel spirit.

Unfortunately for Jamaal, it seemed Mahado was not doing this just for shock value. “Well, I can see you recognize your partner after all this time. I can’t help but feel like you have so much to catch up on. Not to worry—I’ll use my magic to ensure you two have a chance to really share about yourselves. Prepare to become more acquainted with the other half of your soul!”

Jamaal had to cover his eyes from the ensuing flash of golden light, but when it faded, he didn’t feel particularly different. He still knew he needed to defeat Mahado in order to stop the end of the world, and was just as motivated to win as he was before the flash. Physically he felt the same as well, so Jamaal was inclined to believe Mahado hadn’t actually done anything. “Well that seems to be…” Jamaal trailed off as he realized he was no longer hearing his own voice.

Mahado seemed to notice Jamaal’s realization and shot him a wicked smirk. “Well, it looks like you and the Silent Magician have a lot more in common now. It’s a shame—by my understanding, if a duelist doesn’t make a move in five minutes, they lose via forfeit. You’d better speak up soon if you want to keep this interesting!”

Jamaal just shot Mahado a glare before smirking back on his own. Sure, he might not be able to tell his monsters what to do, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t communicate with them. It was a good thing he was using the newer model of duel disk, because this would be a lot harder to pull off using the bulky older models. _Defender, attack his monster!_ The blue-armored knight charged forward, using his shield to bash Legion into the air and stabbing the Fiend Jester with his dagger as it came back down. Mahado’s life points clicked down to 7700 as the magician stared flabbergasted at Jamaal.

“Did you just use sign language to command your monster?”

Jamaal smiled before signing his response. _Well, I wasn’t able to hear them, but I could see them. Since most of my monsters have human hands, it seemed like the best idea. I may not be perfect, but we’re good enough with the language that we can talk now. Now, I believe you get to add a card to your hand thanks to your monster’s effect?_

Mahado’s eye twitched. “You know, I almost liked it better when I could understand what you were saying. I am fluent in many languages, but this is not one of them.” Jamaal wanted to retort that this was Mahado’s own fault he was resorting to this, but with the communication gap he had to settle for flipping Mahado off in a sign pretty much every American would recognize. Regardless of the lack of communication between the duelists, Mahado still added a card to his hand, allowing the duel to continue.

_Chocolate Magician Girl, direct attack!_ The teenaged magician dressed in purple held her staff above her head, charging up a brown orb of energy. She threw this orb at Mahado, who was knocked backwards as his life points decreased to 6100. Jamaal didn’t have any other moves, and made sure to elaborately gesture towards Mahado as a way of signaling his turn was over. It seemed to work, as Mahado drew his next card.

“I’ll set this card face down, and then activate my trap card, Eternal Soul! This card comes with a drawback that it will destroy all of my monsters if it leaves the field, but it more than makes up for it. Not only will any Dark Magician I control be unaffected by your card effects, but I can also either special summon a Dark Magician from my hand or graveyard or add Thousand Knives or Dark Magic Attack from my deck to my hand. This time, I’ll summon the Dark Magician you were kind enough to let me add to my hand last turn.”

A stone tablet with an ancient carving resembling the Dark Magician appeared within the center of Mahado’s Dark Magical Circle, and the carving glowed before it seemed to step out of the tablet and form into the famous spellcaster. However, despite being familiar with the many different artworks that had been used for this monster, Jamaal was taken aback by the appearance. In contrast to the various dark blues, purples, reds, and blacks typically seen on the outfit of the Dark Magician, Mahado’s version was wearing white robes, with the only apparent concession to darkness being the navy bands around the edges of his armor.

The shock of seeing a Dark Magician that seemed to lean far more into light than darkness almost made Jamaal miss Mahado’s next move. “Now that I’ve summoned Dark Magician, my Dark Magical Circle lets me banish one of your cards. Your Magician Girl could be problematic to leave around, so I think it’s time to remove her from the game!” The arcane circle behind Mahado sent a blast of golden energy at the young spellcaster, but Jamaal was now ready. Luckily, duel disks had always had buttons allowing duelists to activate spells or traps, so Jamaal didn’t need to sign anything in order to activate Magical Dimension.

Chocolate Magician Girl disappeared and was replaced with the variant on an iron maiden. The blast of energy from Mahado’s circle harmlessly dissipated on its surface. The device then opened to reveal a slightly older magical girl in dressed in turquoise with a massive curved staff. As soon as Magician’s Valkyria hit the field in defense mode, a teal barrier composed of hexagons formed in front of Defender, the Magical Knight. Thanks to Valkyria’s effect, it was impossible for Mahado to attack any other spellcaster on the field. Even Eternal Soul couldn’t negate this, since it wasn’t Dark Magician who was affected but Mahado himself.

With Dark Magician unaffected by other card effects, Jamaal wasn’t able to use Magical Dimension’s second effect to destroy it. However, that wasn’t much of a problem. His current strategy would be much easier to pull off with Dark Magician on the field instead of the graveyard, where it was easily summoned and would allow another use of Dark Magical Circle. Mahado seemed all too happy to play along with Jamaal’s plan as he continued his turn.

“First, I’ll set this monster in defense mode. Now, Dark Magician, destroy his Magician’s Valkyria with Dark Magic Attack!” Despite the name, the ensuing blast of magic was pure white as it raced towards Jamaal’s only vulnerable monster. Magician’s Valkyria was destroyed, but she left behind two ghostly images of herself. These images quickly became solid as Jamaal activated his Broken Blocker trap card, which let him summon the other two copies of Magician’s Valkyria from his deck since she had been destroyed in battle while in defense position. The teal barrier that previously had protected only Defender, the Magical Knight now extended to all of Jamaal’s monsters, leaving Mahado no other option but to end his turn.

Jamaal knew he had a powerful defense, but one that wouldn’t last forever. His monsters may be safe from attacks, but they were still vulnerable to card effects. Seeing as Mahado had easy access to Thousand Knives from his deck, effect protection was desperately needed. With Defender’s effect, he’d be able to withstand one copy of Thousand Knives, but that only gave him a maximum of two turns to get either his second Defender or one of his Kiwi Magician Girls onto the field. He drew his next card, only to get Sage’s Stone, which was not helpful in this situation. He switched Defender into defense mode just in case Mahado managed to get past his Valkyrias, but other than that, he had no other moves.

Mahado drew his next card before continuing with his turn. “Now, I’ll use Eternal Soul to add Thousand Knives from my deck to my hand. Then I’ll play it, targeting the Magician’s Valkyria on my left for destruction.” The multitude of blades surrounded Mahado’s Dark Magician, all aimed towards the targeted Magician’s Valkyria. Of course, Jamaal wasn’t just going to let that happen, so he signed to his Defender to use his effect. The knight ran in front of the targeted witch, planting his shield in the ground and letting the knives harmlessly bounce off of it. However, this move did cost the knight his spell counter, and the lack of a glow in his shield meant he wouldn’t be able to repeat the move.

Mahado then ended his turn, and Jamaal knew he needed some help or else his defenses would fall next turn. He drew his most powerful card, but it wasn’t helpful in this situation. While Sorcerer of Dark Magic had 3200 attack points and the ability to negate the activation of trap cards, it could only be summoned by sacrificing two level six or higher spellcasters. With three level four spellcasters on the field, it wasn’t helpful now. At least with Sage’s Stone he would be able to summon it if he ever got Dark Magician Girl on the field, but that was starting to look like a longshot.

Mahado drew his next card and smirked at Jamaal. “I’m sure you’re expecting me to take out your Valkyrias this turn, but you won’t need to worry about Thousand Knives. I sacrifice my Dark Magician in order to summon Dark Magician Girl!” Jamaal felt a feeling of dread as the white-robed magician was replaced by his apprentice. Once again, Mahado seemed to have a special version of the card, as his Dark Magician Girl’s armor was white instead of blue, although the pink parts of her outfit seemed to carry over to this new version. Her attack points jumped to 2300, although Jamaal had a sinking suspicion that they would soon be returning to normal.

Sure enough, Mahado continued with his move. “Now, I use Eternal Soul to bring back my Dark Magician, and since I can banish one monster, I’ll target the Magician’s Valkyria on the right!” This time, Jamaal had no way to counter the move, so when the Dark Magician emerged from the stone tablet and the Dark Magical Circle blasted Magician’s Valkyria, she was removed from the game. The shield in front of the other Magician’s Valkyria disappeared with her. She was now open to attack, but Mahado’s next move made that irrelevant.

“Now that I have Dark Magician and Dark Magician Girl on the field, I can activate my most devastating spell. I activate Dark Burning Magic! Say goodbye to everything on your field!” Dark Magician Girl circled around to Dark Magician’s other side before the two spellcasters crossed their staves, causing a pulsating ball of light to appear above them that continuously shot out arcs of lightning. After a few seconds, they hurled this orb at Jamaal’s side of the field, where it burst into multiple waves of flaming energy. By the time the spell exhausted itself, all cards under Jamaal’s control had been sent to the graveyard, leaving him wide open for attack. On Mahado’s orders, they each launched a blast of light energy at Jamaal, bringing him down to 3500 life points.

Jamaal knew he would need something good in order to have any chance at victory here, so it was all riding on the next draw. Upon drawing Magician’s Circle, he was thankful for his history of competing at the tournament level, because if he betrayed any emotion with the draw, he would have been sure to lose. As it was, the only possible chance he had was to rely on a bluff, and even then, he’d need to be lucky and take a rather circuitous path to his end goal. He set Magician’s Circle and ended his turn.

Mahado drew his next card and eyed Jamaal suspiciously. “You’re relying on a single facedown to save you, when you know I have instant access to Dark Magic Attack to clear your backrow? Either this is your way of giving up, or you want me to destroy your trap card…” Jamaal widened his eyes for a brief second, trying to act like Mahado had hit on his strategy. Mahado seemed to think he had caught a slip-up in Jamaal’s body language and smirked. “That trap is just a bluff, isn’t it? Even if it isn’t, I doubt you’ll be able to survive all of this. I switch my Magician’s Robe into attack mode, giving me 5200 attack points on the field. Now, Dark Magician, attack him directly!”

Mahado’s face-down monster was revealed to be the magically animated armor typically worn by the Dark Magician, although curiously this wasn’t one of Mahado’s white variants and instead was the blue variant with red trim that Jamaal had in his own deck. However, that curiosity was more of a side note compared to the fact that Jamaal’s plan had worked thus far—sure, the blast from Mahado’s Dark Magician brought him down to 1000 life points, but if Mahado went for victory with his next attack Jamaal would be able to survive the turn.

Sure enough, Mahado played right into Jamaal’s hands. “Now, Dark Magician Girl, finish this duel!” The female magician began charging up her light attack, only for an arcane circle to appear on the ground and prevent the attack. Jamaal had activated Magician’s Circle, allowing him to summon a copy of Chocolate Magician Girl from his deck.

Mahado snarled. “So, you double-bluffed me? Very well, but don’t think this move saves you in the grand scheme of things. I’ll use your trap to summon my second Dark Magician Girl, and use her to attack your Chocolate Magician Girl!”

One of Mahado’s Dark Magician Girls launched her light-themed Murky Burning attack at Jamaal’s teal-haired magician, but that just served to activate her effect. Chocolate Magician Girl created two chocolate bars in front of her which opened like gates to reveal the Dark Magician Girl that had been in Jamaal’s graveyard since his first turn. The blue and pink clad spellcaster blasted the incoming attack with a stream of pink magic, which cut the attack of Mahado’s Dark Magician Girl in half. This allowed Jamaal’s monster to catch the incoming attack, charge it with her own black energy, and return it to sender, where it exploded destroying Mahado’s monster and dropping his life points to 5100.

However, Mahado didn’t seem too upset with the loss. “It’s sad to see her go, but I do have another one, and your Chocolate Magician Girl can only use her effect once per turn. Dark Magician Girl, destroy his Chocolate Magician Girl!” This time, there was nothing Jamaal could do to protect his monster, and the ball of light vaporized Chocolate Magician Girl and dropped Jamaal to 600 life points. However, it had still gone as well as it could have. With only Magician’s Robe able to attack, Mahado didn’t have any way to destroy Jamaal’s Dark Magician Girl. That meant she would be able to survive until next turn, and he’d finally be able to make use of the two cards in his hand.

Mahado was forced to end his turn, and Jamaal drew Berry Magician Girl. This could help him set up future plays—next turn, he’d be able to protect his monsters from effect destruction. Jamaal summoned her in attack mode, using its effect to add Kiwi Magician Girl to his hand. He wouldn’t be able to summon the level five Spellcaster now, but she would be helpful later. It also wasn’t a problem that Berry Magician Girl only had 400 attack points, since she would switch herself into defense mode if she was attacked while also summoning another Magician Girl to the field. Still, he couldn’t win just by defending, so it was time to take back some of the momentum of this duel.

Jamaal activated Sage’s Stone, causing the blue and red crystal to float in front of his Dark Magician Girl. She hit it with her staff, causing a green circle filled with arcane symbols to appear below her before erupting into a pillar of green light. When this light faded, Jamaal’s own Dark Magician was standing on the field, garbed in blue armor and staring at his white-robed counterpart. As climactic as it would be to face off in what was practically a mirror match, Jamaal had a much better play. He sacrificed his Dark Magician Girl and Dark Magician to bring out his Sorcerer of Dark Magic. With 3200 attack points it was stronger than any of Mahado’s monsters, and it would allow Jamaal to negate any traps.

However, even for all of its strengths, Jamaal knew his Sorcerer was actually quite vulnerable. With Dark Magical Circle, all Mahado had to do was summon a Dark Magician to banish the Sorcerer without any resistance. Since Eternal Soul was already active, Sorcerer of Dark Magic wouldn’t be able to negate it, meaning Mahado could get a Dark Magician to the field just by having one in his hand or Graveyard. Magician’s Robe was potentially more dangerous, since it would be able to summon a Dark Magician for the simple cost of discarding a Spell or Trap card. Since Mahado hadn’t yet used that effect, his hand must only contain five monsters, but there was no telling how long that luck would hold out. He had made it this far, so he had to try and hold out for one more turn.

_Sorcerer of Dark Magic, destroy his Magician’s Robe!_ Jamaal’s strongest monster responded to the signed command by launching his Celestial Blast attack. The torrent of fire completely consumed the robe, vaporizing it and reducing Mahado’s life points to 2600.

With the biggest threat to summon another Dark Magician removed from the field, Jamaal just had to hope Mahado wouldn’t draw anything that would let him get one on the field until next turn. At that point, Kiwi Magician Girl would prevent Dark Magical Circle from being able to target his monsters. He gestured for Mahado to take his turn.

The maniacal wizard just laughed. “I’m sure you’re holding out hope that I don’t get a Dark Magician on the field this turn. Don’t worry—I have no plans on doing so. In fact, if I wanted to, I could have easily done that during your turn.” He turned his hand around, letting Jamaal see what he had. Contrary to what he had thought, he didn’t have five monsters in his hand, but instead had five spells. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I didn’t do that. The simple answer is, it didn’t matter. I sensed my own duel spirit sitting on top of my deck after last turn, and it felt wrong to deny him a chance to battle against one of the strongest dark-attribute spellcasters in the game.”

Jamaal desperately hoped his mentor was bluffing, but he didn’t have too much time to think about it when Mahado started his turn. “I draw, and then because I drew this card, I’m able to special summon it—behold, my duel spirit, Palladium Oracle Mahad!” The monster that must have been Mahado’s namesake appeared in a golden column of light. The sorcerer had equal stats to the Dark Magician, but Jamaal quickly read his defeat in the card’s effect. Mahado announced his victory anyway.

“My monster’s attack doubles whenever it battles a dark monster. Palladium Oracle Mahad, obliterate his Sorcerer and end this duel!” Jamaal couldn’t tear his eyes away as the white-robed magician adorned with gold rose into the air, twirled his staff, and summoned a series of concentric circles with indecipherable glyphs rotating along the arches. Then golden lightning rained down from the glyphs, and Jamaal saw no more.

* * *

Mai had expected some problems as she attempted to cross the channel from Calais into England. After all, she was travelling with a child who didn’t have a passport on her, which was bound to make any border crossing difficult. Most of Europe didn’t have forms of border control, but the United Kingdom was an exception. She had been planning on having Valon bring the appropriate paperwork across the Channel so Crystal and Mai could cross without any kidnapping investigation being launched, but the current state of things made that a minor concern. Legal issues tended to take a backseat when a town was being overrun by duel monsters.

Mai had woken up early in the morning and decided to take a walk on the beach, letting Crystal sleep in a bit. The little girl was obviously enjoying staying in a hotel as opposed to sleeping on the streets, and Mai didn’t want to take this opportunity away from her. Mai was just starting to enjoy the sunrise when a feeling akin to electricity arced through her, along with a pervasive chill. There was something familiar about the feeling, but before Mai could place it, a pillar of darkness shot out of the Channel. From the shadows, a giant figure appeared. The black-skinned demon had a humanoid torso rising out of a giant spider’s body, and Mai was already running back to the hotel before her mind had a chance to recognize the creature as Tragoedia. Knowing she was dealing with a duel spirit wasn’t too much consolation when said duel spirit launched a purple energy laser towards the coast. With a burst of light and the smell of ozone, coastal properties disintegrated as the Channel moved to fill the newly-created furrow.

While Tragoedia seemed content to stay off the coast and lay waste to the seafront, residents further inland still weren’t safe from monster attacks. While Mai was running, she had to dodge between swarms of Sangan. While the three-eyed fiend wasn’t horribly threatening, it did possess sharp claws and Mai didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of those. There also seemed to be some other force at play, as Mai would occasionally see Sangan surrounded by a black aura. She’d have a chance to see what that meant after she made sure Crystal was awake, seeing as the girl’s abilities were now the best bet to save the town.

As Mai raced toward the front of the hotel, a window shattered, and a bipedal rhinoceros fell to the ground. A split second later, an Obnoxious Celtic Guard with a glowing orange aura leapt after it and impaled it on the ground, causing the monster she recognized as Fiendish Rhino Warrior to scream in pain before it faded into shadows. The Obnoxious Celtic Guard held out his hand for Mai, letting her get the gist of what exactly she’d find upstairs. She took the offered hand, and, with a powerful leap from the warrior monster, she found herself in a trashed hotel room. A Marauding Captain with a red aura and a Command Knight with an orange aura were finishing off two Sangan while Crystal stood panting behind them.

The young girl managed to roll her eyes at Mai, despite her apparent exhaustion. “Let me guess, you came to get me because I’m the only one who can deal with the nearly immortal Sangan and their rhinoceros general?”

Mai didn’t quite have time for pre-teen rebellion in addition to a duel monster invasion, so she got right to the point. “Partially yes, but the main reason was to get a chance to talk with you. We’ve got much worse than that going on. Sure, the Fiendish Rhino Warrior is going to make this tough with its ability to prevent any other Fiends from being destroyed, but I’m more worried about the Tragoedia that’s redesigning the coastline right now. I hope you know who could do this, so we can at least try to resolve this without the town getting levelled.”

Crystal’s eyes widened. “You said Tragoedia, right? I know someone with that duel spirit, but he wouldn’t do anything like this.”

Mai scoffed. “I think you’d be surprised what people will do when pushed. I would have sworn I’d never work for an evil madman, and yet the Orichalcos happened.”

Crystal’s gaze hardened. “I think you misunderstand me. I didn’t say he wasn’t capable of doing this, I said he wouldn’t do this. I don’t mean that he isn’t the type to lash out at society—I mean that this is way too small of a scale for what he would want to do. He and his sister were of the opinion that the only way to better society would be to start an apocalypse and rebuild from scratch. He would never just drop everything to attack a city of no real political significance.”

Mai could see Crystal fully believed what she was saying, but Mai had worked for someone who had come very close to causing an apocalypse. That plan had involved a lot of seemingly petty acts of cruelty. Still, regardless of the source of the danger, that didn’t change the fact that they had to do something. “Okay, but that just means we’ve got a third party trying to level this town. Do you feel up for helping to stop this?”

Crystal smirked. “If by ‘help’, you mean carry the team by myself, then yes I can help. Just give me a couple minutes to summon my Knights, and we’ll take care of this.”

“Wait, did you say Knights? Are you aware of Tragoedia’s effects?” Crystal shook her head, so Mai was quick to inform her. “Tragoedia gains attack power for each card in its owner’s hand, and is able to take control of monsters by discarding a monster with the same level. Now, I have no idea what constitutes a hand in a situation like this, but with all the Sangan floating around I think it’s safe to assume Tragoedia will be immensely powerful and able to take control of just about any monster we throw at it. Plus, it’s a Fiend monster, so the Fiendish Rhino Warriors will be able to protect it even if we do manage to hit it.”

This finally seemed to reign in Crystal’s attitude. “Okay, so the only Knight I’ll be able to use against it is the Knight of Destiny, since it will be able to match whatever attack boost Tragoedia has and be immune to control. That’s going to take time, though. We’ll need something to keep its attention off of me for a bit while dealing with the rest of the army…” The wicked smirk returned to Crystal’s face. “Or, we could just wipe out the whole army at once. Two questions: how many attack points does Fiendish Rhino Warrior have, and does Tragoedia’s control effect target?”

Mai thought back to a few tournaments ago, which was the last time she had seen those cards. “Fiendish Rhino Warrior has 1400 attack points. As for Tragoedia’s effect, it does target the monster. Why do you ask?”

Crystal sighed before smiling. “You may have seen my Knights in our duel, but I can do more with the Legendary Dragon cards than just summon their true forms. Admittedly, I have nothing that works with The Eye of Timaeus, since I don’t run Dark Magicians, but the relevant one here is The Fang of Critias. If the Fiendish Rhino Warriors had 1500 or more attack, I would summon Doomed Virus Dragon to take out all the heavy hitters at once, but Mirror Force Dragon will be even better in this situation. If our monsters get attacked or targeted for any effect, Mirror Force Dragon normally can destroy every card on the field.”

Mai vaguely remembered facing off against Mirror Force Dragon when Kaiba had used it against Dartz, but from the stories she heard after she was removed from the field, the card wasn’t as foolproof as it sounded. Still, it was probably the best option they were going to get. She’d have to run with it. “Sounds like it’s worth a try. I’d still start working on summoning Timaeus the Knight of Destiny, though, just in case we end up needing it. Will you be able to start summoning the Knights quickly after summoning Mirror Force Dragon?”

Crystal nodded. “I’ll need a little bit of time to recover, but not as much as I do between summoning the three Knights and then combining them into the Knight of Destiny. Think you can keep all the monsters off of me for a bit? Normally I’d suggest riding on a dragon and letting it protect me, but with Mirror Force Dragon drawing the attacks, that’s probably a bad idea.”

That gave Mai an idea. “Are you up for a little bit of a wait? I want to try something. I haven’t done this since I was wearing an Orichalcos Stone and using that as a conduit, but I have made monsters physical before. Whatever this strange charge in the air is might let me do something similar. Best case scenario, we can ride on Harpie’s Pet Dragon. Worst case scenario, I look like a bit of an idiot and we lose thirty seconds.”

Crystal shrugged, which Mai took as a cue to continue. She closed her eyes and tried to bring herself back to when she had first proven ‘worthy’ of an Orichalcos Stone. After she had managed to pass the stone’s test, Dartz had set her to work on using its abilities before giving her the Seal of Orichalcos card. She had managed to summon a Harpie Lady after twelve hours of attempts, so hopefully she’d manage a much quicker turnaround now. She focused on the feeling of summoning a monster, snapped her eyes open, held out her hand, and shouted, “Harpie’s Pet Dragon, I summon you!”

Mai felt a strange pull in her stomach, but beyond that the only reaction to her summoning attempt was a snort coming from Crystal. Not one to let a little judgement stop her from doing anything, she gave two more attempts that still failed to summon the dragon. This time, instead of finding it funny Crystal just seemed bored. “Can we go now? It’s obviously not working.”

Mai grit her teeth. “Just give me one more chance. It worked for my Harpie Ladies, so give it a chance…” Mai trailed off as she heard the rustle of feathers above her, sounding far too big to be a normal bird. For a second, she thought they might be under attack again, but then a humanoid figure flew into the room. Mai’s face split into a grin at the sight of Harpie Lady 1, but then that look faded to confusion as she saw Harpie Lady 2 and 3 both land outside of the hotel. Had she summoned Harpie Lady Sisters, or three separate monsters? Did such a distinction even matter in a case like this? And why had she managed to summon them by accident when her attempts to summon another monster intentionally had failed?

While Mai was wondering how this had all happened, Crystal cut in. “Well, I must say I’m impressed. As someone with a bit of experience summoning three monsters at once, it isn’t easy. Sure, you only managed it with weaker monsters, but for a first attempt in years that’s still pretty good.”

Mai almost wanted to slap herself at that last part. Of course she was having difficulty summoning a level seven monster right out of the gate. While the whole tribute summoning mechanic probably didn’t have a real-world counterpart, it was still something she had to work up to. “That gives me an idea. I might not be able to summon my dragon, but I can probably summon a monster that can summon my dragon. Start working on your summoning—we’re going to be airborne soon.” With that, Mai shuffled through her deck until she found the card she was looking for and used it as a focal point. Focusing on the pull she felt earlier, she called out, “I summon Harpie Channeler!”

The black-feathered Harpie joined the three sisters, and Mai was about to have her newly arrived monster use its ability to summon Harpie’s Pet Dragon when she saw Crystal and her monsters leave the room. Only then did she realize that summoning a large dragon inside the building wouldn’t go well. She went to shattered window to see Crystal working on a summoning of her own outside. Not wanting to fall behind, Mai called out to her Channeler, who struck the ground and summoned a pillar of fire. Mai’s other Harpies took to the air, since announcing their presence like this was bound to attract attention, but the Pet Dragon roared into existence without any interference. It did hiss with annoyance when Crystal leaped off of the back of her own dragon to land on its back, but Harpie Channeler quickly calmed it down before giving Mai a lift onto its back. With that, the dragons took to the sky and towards the coastline.

Almost immediately, Tragoedia launched a beam of green energy at them, but Mirror Force Dragon flew ahead of the others. The black dragon folded its top set of wings in front of itself as a shield and absorbed the attack. All four of its wings began glowing and constantly shifting between the colors of the rainbow before the dragon gave a mighty wingbeat. The light scattered downwards, raining down on the city in tiny slivers of light. Mai knew from experience that these slivers weren’t particularly painful, but they were highly deadly. The thought made her wince as she turned back to Crystal.

“Should we be worried about attacking throughout the city? I know we need to take out the army, but this could catch a lot of innocent people.”

Crystal just huffed. “Do you really think Critias would do something like that? He wouldn’t harm innocents even when I wanted him to. Sure, there might be a bit of property damage, but Mirror Force Dragon is able to bend the path of its light. Nobody down there is getting hit except the monsters.”

As if to prove her point, more needles than Mai could count redirected towards Tragoedia, who let out an unearthly scream of pain. However, there must have been another effect in play that prevented Tragoedia from being destroyed, and it quickly moved to counter. It reached out its hand, and a red spectral version of that hand grasped Mirror Force Dragon. It launched a blast of rainbow light from its mouth in retaliation, but the attack faded out as the effect took hold. The dragon started to turn, but Mai acted quickly.

“Sorry, Crystal. Harpies, use Harpie’s Feather Storm!” The four Harpies quickly began shooting their feathers at Mirror Force Dragon, blinding it and suppressing its effect. Mai knew the move would only be temporary, though, so she had to get rid of the dragon quickly. “Harpies Pet Dragon, roast Mirror Force Dragon!” The Giga Saint Flare attack ignited all the feathers coating the formerly allied dragon, causing it to fall from the sky. Mai felt nails digging into her arm and turned to see Crystal’s face twisted in pain, but the girl eventually recovered and relaxed her grip.

“Next time,” she panted, “give me a bit more warning. That was quite a hit, and I wasn’t recovered from summoning the three Knights.” Mai was going to respond, but the words were quickly snatched away from her as Harpie’s Pet Dragon swerved to the side. She almost fell, but the alternative would have been to get hit by Tragoedia’s purple blast. She supposed it was for the best. Still, they needed to do something to keep the fiend’s attention off of them and the legendary knights, so Mai called out her next move.

“Harpie Ladies, Phoenix Formation!” Her four Harpies flew together and ignited into blue flames, forming a phoenix that tore down towards Tragoedia. However, before the bird could make contact, two glowing red hands grabbed it by the head. The bird split apart as the two Harpies in the lead veered around and struck the other two. Mai felt as if her spirit was burning, and then felt a disturbing weightlessness as the dragon she was sitting on stopped being solid. She and Crystal fell through it. She was dimly aware of Crystal screaming something but couldn’t make out the words before she landed roughly—thankfully not much further down than when she had started falling. The once again solid dragon had flown down to catch them, but the fall had brought them closer to Tragoedia. Mai could see it charging another blast. Mai could only hope her dragon would be able to dodge in time, but then one Tragoedia fell to one side as if its legs had collapsed. The attack missed the mark, with Mai only getting hit by displaced air and the smell of burning

Mai didn’t have time to wonder what had caused the diversion, as the golden-armored Knight of Destiny charged into the Channel. With one swing of his sword, he sliced Tragoedia in two. Whatever protection effects it seemed to have before must not have applied to destruction by battle, as the two halves of the monster faded into shadow. The Knight of Destiny split back into the three Legendary Knights, and Harpie’s Pet Dragon flew down to meet them.

Now that the battle was seemingly over, Mai was ready to relax when Crystal tapped her on the shoulder. “Remind me never to hop on a dragon summoned by someone without any practice again. You’ve got to learn to keep your monsters solid regardless of the damage.”

Mai rolled her eyes at the good-natured jab. “I’ll keep that in mind. Now, what do you say we land, recall our monsters and figure out how to explain—wait, what’s that?” Mai’s attention had been drawn to what looked to be a human in the water, but as the figure dragged itself out, Mai noticed it was wearing a full suit of armor. With a sudden idea of what exactly had caused Tragoedia’s last attack to veer off course, she called out, “You’re late, Valon. Crystal and I had this all taken care of.”

The figure took off its helmet to reveal Mai had assessed the identity correctly. “Do you know why they keep records of people who swim across the Channel? It’s bloody difficult, that’s why! Especially wearing full armor—after I went through all that work, the least you could do is let me get more than one punch in!”

Mai chuckled. “Well, I think we can make it up to you. Crystal, this is Valon. He works at what’s going to be your new home, and he’ll probably be picking fistfights with Hermos all the time. Keep an eye on him for me, will you?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaiba begins his one-man raid on Nitemare's castle, while Rafael and Tea attempt to regain some ground in the battle for New York. Both sides end up getting some unexpected help...

Seto Kaiba prided himself on many things, but foremost among those things was his self-control. No matter what, he always tried to keep a cool head. Some interpreted this as him only caring about four things: his brother, his Blue-Eyes, his company, and himself. While that was not entirely accurate, Kaiba did admit they were the most important things in his life and the things he would go to the greatest lengths to protect or avenge.

It was only his vaunted self-control that was stopping him from razing the city on his way to Nitemare’s new castle. After the spirit had kidnapped his brother and captured his fastest dragon, Iblis, he had returned to his apartment to gather more of his old cards. While he would still be keeping his new tournament-legal deck on him, since these types of events often ended up in an actual duel, he had wanted to gather as many options as possible. Having a card made it easier for him to make that card’s effects real, and he had a feeling the pre-errata version of his Crush Card Virus and his Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon would be helpful if this ended up being more similar to the Shadow Games of the past.

While he had been gathering these cards, Nitemare had raised his castle—on the same plot of land as Kaiba Corporation headquarters. It was possible the original building still existed, but if it did it was hidden within a castle that appeared to be made from obsidian and was floating twenty meters in the air. The message was clear that Nitemare thought he could do whatever he wanted—and was making it his mission to personally antagonize Seto Kaiba. It was just up to Kaiba to re-educate some ancient Egyptian based spirit that it did not pay to antagonize Seto Kaiba. While he could easily summon one of his dragons and lay waste to anything that got in his way, he knew he had to be smarter about this. It wouldn’t pay to waste his energy before the main fight, and he’d need to save his best cards to counter the Wicked Avatar that Nitemare had used against Mokuba. As such, he was taking the comparatively subtle approach of flying the Blue-Eyes Jet just over the top of the Domino City skyline.

The original plan had been to fly right up to the castle, have the jet outside a window, and infiltrate the castle that way. However, it seemed Nitemare wasn’t going to just let that happen, as he had scrambled what must have been his aerial forces. The sky was filled with Dark Blades riding on Pitch Dark Dragons and Kiryus, so Kaiba knew he would have to fight his way in instead. Still, if Nitemare thought such weak creatures would keep him out, he obviously didn’t know who he was dealing with. landed the jet and started approaching on foot, summoning just two monsters to face down the oncoming horde.

“Azrael, Djirbil, to me!” The two Blue-Eyes White Dragons roared out their challenge. In a direct fight in the card game, none of gathered monsters would be able to beat a Blue-Eyes. However, that didn’t take into account any additional effects that may be placed on these monsters or the simple fact that, unlike in the card game, monsters had durability and stamina to consider so a war of attrition could potentially wear out even the strongest of monsters. Of course, the Blue-Eyes weren’t acting alone, and Kaiba had additional support of his own.

“Azrael, Djirbil, double Burst Stream of Destruction!” He infused some of his own magical power into his dragons, allowing them to launch a variant of their typical White Lightning attack. Unlike that attack which was a focused beam of power that could cut through anything, this attack covered a more diffuse area. It also gained a strange property—the blast could pass through solid walls, and would only damage duel spirits that were hostile to the Blue-Eyes in question. The effect was amplified, allowing one attack from a Blue-Eyes to wipe out every enemy monster. The only drawback was this prevented the dragons from launching their normal attacks for a period of time, but Kaiba was willing to risk that to clear out the enemy.

The burst of lightning washed over Nitemare’s Castle and the surrounding airspace, eliminating the entirety of Nitemare’s forces. Of course, Kaiba didn’t take that to mean he had a clear path to Mokuba. Nitemare could easily summon more monsters, and there were still spells and traps to worry about. Speaking of which, there were two red streaks flying out of the castle, one headed for each of his dragons. Acting quickly, Kaiba made a move to protect his monsters.

“Fusion! Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon!” The red streaks—which Kaiba recognized from his duel with Lumis and Umbra as two copies of The Mask of Remnants—flew through the empty space where the individual dragons had been, completely missing the two-headed dragon that had appeared in the center of where they had been. This fusion had come about during Kaiba’s training in the afterlife—he had gotten the hang of summoning his three Blue-Eyes White Dragons, and had wanted to see if he could summon his Neo Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon. His initial attempts had no results, but later tries managed to fuse two of the three into this new monster.

With the way clear, Kaiba returned to his jet and started flying forward, only to be stopped in midair a few meters from the castle. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any damage to himself or the jet despite the sudden stop, and a quick glance to the side revealed the reason. He was currently surrounded by glowing swords. Swords of Revealing Light had a curious side effect that ignored certain laws of physics like gravity or inertia. Still, for all their abilities, there was a reason Yugi stopped relying on this card after Duelist Kingdom—they were easily removed. Kaiba programmed his jet to land, and then cast De-Spell. The swords faded away and Kaiba jumped from the top of his jet, aiming for the nearby window, only to have himself frozen in the air from another casting of Swords of Revealing Light, this time also backed by the variant that was the newer trap, Spiritual Swords of Revealing Light.

Kaiba sighed as he processed the latest annoyance. Clearly, Nitemare didn’t want him entering from this point, which made it all the more important that he did, in fact, enter from this point. However, having to deal with walls of swords every few seconds would get far too annoying, especially if Nitemare was just stalling to rebuild his army and he ended up boxed in before he could find Mokuba. He would just need to find a way in that made it look like he was still outside. Such a thing may be difficult for most people, but Seto Kaiba was in no way most people.

Kaiba prepared himself for the tricky combination he was about to pull off. Each individual aspect was simple, but pulling them all together without Nitemare realizing it would be more difficult. The swords would be easily dealt with—he could use A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon to remove all of them at once, which would only come at the cost of de-summoning his Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon. Since he doubted the castle would be large enough for the dragon to move freely, that had been part of his plan anyway. The trickier part would be leaving behind a double of himself. Something as simple as his Cloning trap card wouldn’t hold up to any scrutiny. He did have one monster that would fit the part perfectly, but it would require putting aside a little bit of his pride as well as some very quick work with his holograms. With Mokuba on the line, it was a small price to pay.

Kaiba began the spell for A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon, causing his Blue-Eyes Twin Burst Dragon to be replaced by an ethereal dragon of fire—which formed directly around Kaiba. This was needed to pull off his next move, a double summoning of Peten the Dark Clown and the Kaibaman Mokuba had commissioned. While the duel spirit acted in an overdramatic fashion with none of Kaiba’s personal flair, it had more than a passing resemblance to him and the ability to summon other duel spirits. All it took was some quick work with parts he had taken from some older duel disks lying around to replace the ridiculous hat and hairstyle with his own face, and it was more like facing one of the old virtual copies of himself instead of a duel monster. Hopefully that would be enough to fool Nitemare.

By this point, A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon had removed the swords and began fading from existence. Luckily, Peten managed to teleport him through the window before the fire completely faded, and when the swords inevitably reappeared, they were trapping his decoy outside instead of himself. With that annoyance out of his way for now, he turned to see exactly what he was facing. He was in a narrow hallway that seemed to be mainly to let light into a cavernous room roughly six meters ahead. In contrast to the obsidian exterior of the castle, the interior was made of a stone more similar to basalt. Architecture wise he was reminded more of Pegasus’s castle than the ancient Egyptian palace, although the stone carving of a Kuriboh on the floor seemed to be taken directly from the room where the Pharaoh’s Court stored the stone tablets for their monster spirits.

Reaching out with his magic, Kaiba could sense the carving was more than just decoration, with an actual Kuriboh spirit sealed inside. Doubtless it would be summoned if he stepped on the tablet, and Kaiba was not going to let that stop him. The Pharaoh Atem had used Kuriboh to stop his Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon and his Obelisk the Tormentor in the past, and Kaiba wasn’t about to let one blow up his leg and stop him for a third time. It would be simple enough to jump over the tablet, but Kaiba sensed something off about the unmarked stone behind it. More careful probing revealed the second hidden trap contained the spirit of Jirai Gumo, so anybody who thought to jump over the Kuriboh would end up within the jaws of the giant spider.

While Kaiba could appreciate the cleverness of the trap, there was one glaring weakness. Putting traps on the floor was only an effective strategy if an infiltrator walked along the floor. It would have been easy for Peten to teleport across this distance, but Kaiba wanted his monster to save his energy. The walls of this castle were easier to climb than the ones in Pegasus’s castle, and it hadn’t been too difficult to climb to the ceiling and get the drop on the guards around Mokuba’s cell. Compared to that, it was almost child’s play to get into the room proper by using the walls and ceiling to get to the edge of the hallway and peer down into the room below. The chamber was octagonal, with a door set in each side. Kaiba had no doubt Nitemare had turned this into a maze. Kaiba hadn’t been able to pick up any sort of signal showing Mokuba’s location yet, so he’d have to navigate by trial and error. The eight Dragon Seekers lounging in the center of the room were a reminder of what would likely happen in the case of error.

The Dragon Seekers posed a major challenge to Kaiba’s plans. While it would be fairly easy to overpower them even without using dragons that would be vulnerable to their effects, defeating them quietly was another matter. Avoiding them using Peten’s effect would get him to the door without any issue, but if the door made any noise as it opened the guards would likely attack immediately. Even if they didn’t, they would likely alert Nitemare and he’d have far more problems to deal with. So, his only way forward seemed to be a more outside of the box approach. The only time he had used this monster was in his deck that tested Obelisk’s power against his previous deck, but it should still be easy to use. “Invitation to a Dark Sleep, disable the Dragon Seekers!”

The black-cloaked spellcaster created an orb of yellow energy between its hands as it charged its Sleep Wave technique. Once it was ready, the orb disappeared, only to reappear in the midst of the Fiend monsters below. The orb immediately expanded before they could react, and after it engulfed all of the Dragon Seekers, it faded to reveal all of the victims were asleep. With that out of the way, all Kaiba had to do now was pick a door. If Nitemare thought such a maze would be enough to keep him from finding Mokuba, he was sorely mistaken. After all, when Nitemare brought Mokuba to this castle, he brought him back to a location where his GPS tracker could find him, so he knew going through the east-facing door would bring him closest to Mokuba.

Kaiba opened the door, which unlike his earlier worries, opened completely silently. That would make it easier to sneak up on whatever was in this room, but unlike the last room, no monsters were waiting for him. Either Nitemare hadn’t had time to fill every room with creatures after his Burst Stream of Destruction, or this room had something else waiting for him. Considering it was likely a trap, he had one monster perfect for the job of scouting this out. “Trap Master, find and disable any traps in this room!”

The maniacal warrior laughed as it revealed the various drills and saws under its cloak, dashing around the room. Kaiba noticed it dismantle Needle Walls, Needle Ceiling, and multiple pitfall traps, although whether they were regular Trap Holes, Bottomless Trap Holes, or some other variant Kaiba wasn’t able to discern. Still, once all the traps were clear, he was able to let out a sigh of relief and move on to the next room. A quick check of Mokuba’s GPS, though, revealed a complication. Before walking into this room, Mokuba had been to his east. Now, Mokuba was appearing directly west of his position. Since Kaiba would have noticed Mokuba moving past him, the only explanations that came to mind were Nitemare was somehow manipulating the GPS signal, or the doors in Nitemare’s castle didn’t connect rooms normally and instead connected in ways that would magically transport someone to a different section of the castle.

Kaiba huffed in annoyance before dismissing his monsters. Clearly Nitemare had wanted to turn his castle into an annoying puzzle of a dungeon. Unfortunately for him, Kaiba’s gaming prowess extended far beyond just Duel Monsters. There was a reason he had programmed his own adventure RPG as a side project, after all. He had a knack for finding the correct path through dungeons, and this time around he practically had a cheat code. Nitemare may be using magic to scramble his ability to find Mokuba, but he had spent some time learning how to sense the various enchantments the ancient Egyptians had used for defense. It would only take him a bit of time to feel out the exact nature of the magic he was dealing with and then find a way to reverse engineer it to take him on the correct path.

After a few minutes, he couldn’t help but smirk. He had found the path, and he was only two rooms away from the room where Mokuba was held. Of course, Nitemare was probably expecting him to reach that point, so the next room was bound to be dangerous and the spirit himself would likely be standing guard over Mokuba. Of course, Kaiba would have never gotten as far in life as he had if he was afraid of a challenge. He went to the next door, and summoned two copies of Peten the Dark Clown and one copy of Trap Master. Before opening the door, he outlined his plan to his monsters: the first Peten would teleport trap Master up to the window ledge to ensure there weren’t any traps, followed immediately by the second Peten teleporting Kaiba himself. From there, he’d be able to assess the situation and counter it appropriately.

It turned out Kaiba had been overly cautious on his entry strategy, as Trap Master confirmed the absence of any traps in the upper corridor leading to the window. That left him time to focus on how to handle the massive army gathered in the room. It was led by Dark General Freed, and consisted of a mix of Dark Grephers and Dark Blades. There were far too many for Invitation to a Dark Sleep to knock them all out at once, and if Dark Grepher retained the ability to manipulate dragons, as mentioned on Warrior Dai Grepher’s card text, it meant he wouldn’t be able to use any of his dragons in battle. He also needed to be sure the monsters he did use wouldn’t be loud enough to alert monsters in other rooms, leaving out some of his bigger attackers like his XYZ Dragon Cannon.

Kaiba was still going through some of his options when his cell phone started ringing. Without the element of surprise, he would have to go with the best plan he had at the time. “Kaiser Vorse Raider, Slate Warrior, Vorse Raider, and Blade Knight, attack!” The four close-range monsters leapt down into the action. With the nebulous definition of things being in his hand, Blade Knight was able to use its power-up effect, meaning each of his monsters were individually stronger than everything gathered below, except for Dark General Freed. Even so, his Kaiser Vorse Raider would overcome that after destroying one other monster. That just left the matter of who could be calling him. He had only given this number to Mokuba, Roland, and Yugi, all of whom knew better than to call him unless it was something truly urgent. Roland and Mokuba both knew he was infiltrating the castle and thus wouldn’t call, so there was only one logical choice.

“Talk quickly, Yugi. You just alerted a bunch of monsters to my presence so this better be good.” However, it wasn’t Yugi’s voice that responded—or even one of the people Kaiba could reasonably expect to have gotten his number second-hand. He couldn’t place the voice that answered until she revealed her name.

“Sorry, Mr. Kaiba, but this isn’t Yugi. It’s Sara Gravenor. I’m sorry to call you, but I’m in the floating castle at the moment, and I believe I’ve found one of your dragons. It doesn’t seem to want to leave, so I’m guessing you’re also here. If you stay on the line, I’ll be able to track where you are to reunite you two.”

Kaiba supposed she had gotten this number when he had called her, but something wasn’t adding up. “Hold on, you say you’re also in the castle, and you just so happened to find my dragon? That seems a little too convenient. How exactly did you get past the monsters?”

“I didn’t have too much trouble because most of the rooms I went through were just filled with traps. There was one room that had a Dark Armed Dragon that I managed to sneak around, and your dragon was just guarded by a Witty Phantom. I picked its pocket for the key and your dragon took care of the rest. And it’s fine if you don’t believe me—you’ll see soon enough. Just don’t move for a second.”

Kaiba had half a mind to immediately jump away from where he was in case she was springing a trap, but then a familiar blast of White Lightning burst through the floor in the center of the room, taking out many of the Dark Blades and Dark Grephers that were working on taking down his other monsters. With keeping quiet no longer an option, Kaiba summoned his XYZ Dragon Cannon to give his other monsters a reprieve and to make sure none of the opposing monsters got a chance to take control of Iblis once again. Between the surprise of being attacked from below and the addition of the combined machine monster, the room was soon cleared of hostile monsters. Iblis came over to Kaiba and happily nuzzled up against him.

Kaiba heard sound of Sara trying to hold back a giggle but failing. He sent her a glare, but it still took a while for her to recover. “I’m sorry, it’s just so cute seeing a dragon known as a powerful engine of destruction acting like a cat around someone like you. Although I have to admit, I was surprised with how easy it was to get it to work with me. I thought it would take time to convince it I was trying to help you.”

Kaiba knew the real reason for that, but it wasn’t exactly something he would come out and say. After all, saying the Blue-Eyes was so friendly with Sara because his mother was bonded to Sara’s past life wasn’t the best way to converse with a near stranger. She was taking the whole ‘Duel Monsters made real’ aspect well, but there was a limit to how much Kaiba felt like personally explaining. So, it was simpler to go with a partial truth.

“It normally would be much harder to earn Iblis’s trust. However, you bear a strong resemblance to a woman I used to know. She earned my trust and that of my dragons.”

Sara couldn’t help but smirk. “Should I be worried that I apparently look like this ex-girlfriend of yours? It might make our current business arrangement awkward, even if officially you aren’t my boss.”

Kaiba shut her up with a glare. “She was just a friend, not a girlfriend. There was never anything romantic between us, except maybe in a past life if you happen to believe in that sort of thing. Besides, she’s been dead for years.” All of which were true statements, although the ‘maybe’ in the past life was more of a ‘definitely’ and ‘years’ was a bit misleading for someone who lived multiple millennia ago. “Regardless, we have more important things to deal with. I thank you for freeing my dragon, but I have to go rescue my brother and put a stop to the person who thought he could get away with this.”

Sara’s face hardened. “I’m going too. Someone kidnapped my brother as well, and he’s being held here. I’m not leaving without him.”

Kaiba shrugged. “Fine, just don’t get in my way. Iblis, I think it’s time we pay Nitemare a final visit. He’s just through this door, but why don’t we show him we won’t play by his terms. Destroy that wall with your White Lightning!”

* * *

Téa grunted in pain as she dived to the ground, but it was preferable to staying upright when Skull Knight 2’s swords passed through the area where her head had been. Her Fairy’s Gift launched another attack at the fiend, and this time the Faerie Arrow attack stayed solid long enough to penetrate the other monster’s armor and destroy it. Téa wasn’t sure if it was because she wasn’t a duelist or some other factor, but her monster kept fading in and out of being solid. It happened frequently enough that about one out of every three attacks would harmlessly pass through their targets, but thus far she had managed to avoid serious injury thanks to the combined efforts of her monster, Rafael’s two Guardians, and Rafael himself, who was wielding what must have been a different monster’s sword.

Luckily, that monster proved to be the last of this latest groups of Skull Knights, giving Téa a chance to catch her breath. Natalie was quick to help her up, but she wasn’t exactly focusing all of her attention on Téa. “Okay, I get that you’ve got a crazy life story and you’ve been friends with an ancient Egyptian spirit, but I’m going to have to ask for more details on this. How exactly did you end up meeting a six foot five hunk who’s good at fencing and can run an international charity that is so rich people think he’s connected to the Illuminati?”

A part of Téa wanted to tell her friend off for developing a crush in the middle of a life or death situation, but she knew she couldn’t do that without being a massive hypocrite. After all, her first crush had been on the spirit of an ancient pharaoh that happened to be possessing her best friend’s body—a mentally unstable pharaoh who had saved her in a hostage situation by lighting a serial killer on fire. While Atem had eventually seen the error of his ways as his bond with Yugi helped heal his spirit, that hadn’t been the case at first, and Rafael was probably a much better choice at this point. Still, Téa was saved the need to respond by Rafael himself, who apparently heard the conversation.

“We didn’t meet under the best of circumstances. I’m not sure if the Illuminati exist, but if they do, they would have been part of the actual secret society I was once a part of. The conman running the whole thing used my accounts to hide some of his money, and now that I’ve realized I was being used, I decided to use that money to actually make the world a better place. But we’ve wasted enough time here. We need to get to the source of this, and we’ll never make any progress if we keep stopping to fight all the minions we see.”

Téa’s breath caught as she realized the implication, but it took her friends a little longer to realize Rafael was suggesting they stop worrying about innocent bystanders and make a direct path towards Seven-Armed Fiend. When they did, they let out exclamations of shock—or that might just have been a response to the new arrival in the group. Téa had expected to see Guardian Eatos well before this point in the night, considering Rafael seemed the closest to the card, and it had been one of his strongest monsters. What she hadn’t expected was for the angel to be standing with her hands on her hips and giving Rafael a glare that matched the look Téa’s mother would often give her when Téa got back from impromptu trips to Duelist Kingdom or Egypt.

However, Rafael didn’t seem too affected by the mom glare. “Eatos, you know as well as I do that we need to stop this army at its source. And before you bring it up again, no, I will not let you die to win this. I don’t care if Dreadscythe is immortal. I believed you worked together with the Pharaoh to prove immortal doesn’t mean eternal, and I’m not sure how many cards I could be considered to have in my hand.”

Téa could guess that this was a rehash of a conversation Rafael had been having since the monsters first appeared tonight. Still, he was right about getting to the source of everything, even if it meant ignoring the people between them and Seven-Armed Fiend. Hopefully stopping the source monster would eliminate all of the summoned monsters as well. Still, going off without any plan was bound to end in failure.

“Okay, we can hurry for the source, but we’ll need to figure out a way to beat Seven-Armed Fiend before we get there. Assuming it has the same abilities as the one I fought before, in addition to summoning all these skeletons, it can revive things from the dead, read minds, destroy anything with its energy blasts, grab things from any distance, and put up an impenetrable shield. We only beat it last time because it tried reading the Pharaoh’s mind when it was still connected to the Millennium Puzzle. That confused it enough for us to get a lucky hit in with the power of a Black Luster Soldier around its shield. I’m not sure how we could pull off something like that—”

Téa was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone, in a tune that sounded like it came from the opening screen of an old video game—specifically, the game Yugi had leant her on their first meeting way back in elementary school. Téa quickly answered the phone. “Yugi! Please tell me you’re okay and didn’t get caught up in this mess.”

Yugi’s response sounded like he was slightly out of breath from running. “Téa, am I glad to hear your voice! The attack is all over the news—they diverted my flight so I just landed in Philadelphia. Are you somewhere safe?”

Téa grimaced. “Well, about as safe as we usually were on all of our adventures. I’ve managed to summon a duel spirit and met up with Rafael, so we’ve at least got more protection against the duel monsters than most. But we’re close to the center of this, and the attacker is a Seven-Armed Fiend like Alexander used against us.”

“You summoned a duel spirit? That’s great to hear—wait, is that why the air feels so familiar here? Something opened a connection to the Shadow Realm. If I can feel it all the way over here, it must be really strong where you are…” Yugi trailed off for a second and Téa could tell he was coming up with a plan. She could practically hear the smirk he had inherited from Atem when he continued. “I’ve got an idea on how to get over to you and help. Is there anything nearby that people wouldn’t mind if it disappeared or got destroyed?”

“I mean, we’ve got some trash cans in this alley—”

“Perfect! Can we make this a video call? I’m going to need to see it. With the connection to the Shadow Realm, I should be able to get some help from an old friend…” Téa wasn’t sure exactly what Yugi was planning, but she did as he asked. As soon as the video call was opened, she turned the phone towards the trash can, and immediately she saw what Yugi’s plan was. A tall black box split into three compartments adorned with question marks appeared around the trash can, and Téa moved towards the Mystic Box. Just like when the Dark Magician used this trick, the doors opened to reveal Yugi, presumably leaving the trash can back in Philadelphia skewered by swords. Unlike the Dark Magician, though, Yugi wasn’t nearly as graceful exiting the box, stumbling forward and forcing Téa to catch him before he hit the ground.

Yugi just grinned sheepishly. “Thanks, Téa. That was a bit more disorienting than I expected, but I’m glad it worked.” Once he had his feet back under him, he gave a nod to Rafael before turning to Natalie and Nina. “Hi, my name’s Yugi Muto. It’s nice to meet you.” His eyes then returned to the determined look he only got when dueling or when his friends were in trouble. “So, we’ve got Seven-Armed Fiend attacking. Where exactly is it?”

Rafael answered. “It’s about five blocks that way, as of the last time we saw it. Téa said you beat this before, but thanks to the Pharaoh’s connection to the Millennium Puzzle. Do you have any strategies we could use now?”

“Working on it. I do have an idea, but I’ll need to talk it over with my spirits first. Magician’s Valkyria!” Yugi’s call resulted in another presence joining them in the alley, looking like a Dark Magician Girl except for her turquoise outfit and auburn hair. Yugi then turned his attention to his newly summoned monster. “I’m not sure how this works with having multiple copies of a monster. If I try to summon your spirit again, would I end up with two of you, or would you just answer the second summons?” The duel spirit tilted her head to the side before shrugging her shoulders, causing Yugi to nod in response.

“Well, I guess there’s nothing wrong with giving it a shot. I summon Magician’s Valkyria!” Téa guessed Yugi got what he wanted, as an identical twin of the first monster appeared, along with a teal barrier surrounding each monster. Yugi smiled. “Okay, just one more thing to test. Kiwi Magician Girl!” However, this time no monster answered his call. Yugi looked around for a few seconds before continuing. “Okay, I know that I can summon multiple monsters, so why can’t I summon her…is it because she’s level five? I’m not exactly comfortable making a sacrifice of one of my spirits…but maybe I don’t have to! I summon Berry Magician Girl!”

This time the called for monster did appear, a little baby magician dressed in a fairy costume. She hovered around Yugi’s head as he asked her a question. “I know in the card game you need to be attacked or targeted with an effect for this to work, but would you be able to summon Kiwi Magician Girl here?” The little girl’s head drooped as she apparently couldn’t do what Yugi asked. He frowned for a little bit before continuing. “Okay, would you mind being really brave for me for a little bit and going into battle? I promise I’ll keep you safe, but we’re going to need your older sister on this.”

The tiny magician started nodding enthusiastically, causing Yugi to smile before he dismissed his monsters. He then turned back to the humans in the group. “Okay, I don’t have a great plan for how to fully defeat Seven-Armed Fiend, but I have a way to contain the damage. Combining two Magician’s Valkyrias and a Kiwi Magician Girl will create a field around our Spellcaster monsters that prevents any attack or effect-based destruction. If we can completely box in Seven-Armed Fiend, it won’t be able to do anything while we try whatever we can to destroy it. Rafael, I don’t think any of the Guardians I saw were Spellcasters, but do you have any you could summon?”

“There aren’t any Spellcaster-type Guardians, but I do have three copies of Arsenal Summoner in my deck. Going off of your multiple summon of Magician’s Valkyria, I can contribute three other monsters to this. If we’re trapping Seven-Armed Fiend, my Guardians will be able to watch our backs in case some of the Skull Knights come back.”

Yugi nodded, and Téa felt like she had to contribute more to the team if Rafael was going to have six monsters out and Yugi looked prepared to send every spellcaster he had ever used into battle. “I…might be able to summon Fire Sorcerer? I was able to do it against Zorc, but I’m not able to keep Fairy’s Gift solid as it is, so I’m not sure if I can handle two at once…” Téa trailed off but Yugi was quick to grab her in a hug.

“Listen, Téa, you don’t have to compare yourselves to us. Both Rafael and I have been able to talk with out duel spirits for a long time, and we both were exposed to ancient magic for years. I’m just proud that you’re able to summon any spirit since you’ve never had either of those advantages.”

This was just one of the many times Téa wondered what she had ever done to deserve someone like Yugi Muto in her life. Even in the midst of an attack that could destroy a city, he would take time to make sure she didn’t get too down on herself. It was hard not to fall more in love with him each day. “Thanks, Yugi. But we should probably get going. Would it be better if we all came at Seven-Armed Fiend at once, or should we try to surround it before we summon any monsters?”

Yugi nodded and started heading in the direction Rafael had pointed out. “I think it would be best to come at it in two groups. I don’t want it reading our minds and finding a counter to our plan before it’s good and trapped. I’ll go in with Berry Magician Girl first, and when I start summoning more monsters, it will be your signal to summon yours. Since I’m going to be the one who gives the signal, I’ll loop around and attack it on the far side. Still, we should stick together until we get closer to it.”

With that, the group spent most of the rest of the walk in silence, trying to sneak up on Seven-Armed Fiend. It apparently had jumped off of the roof and was now walking down the street, still flinging orbs of destruction but not noticing the group of humans to its left. Yugi gave Téa’s hand a squeeze before he snuck behind the monster, quietly working around to attack from its right. For a few seconds, Téa could only listen to her own heartbeat as everyone held their breath, but Yugi made it across without incident and drew himself up to face the beast.

“Hey, why don’t you pick on someone who can actually fight back? I summon Berry Magician Girl!” The shout drew Seven-Armed Fiend’s attention, but it didn’t seem particularly impressed at a lone human backed up by a baby Spellcaster. It flicked a much smaller orb towards the baby, but Yugi smiled. “Thanks, because now my Kiwi Magician Girl enters the battle!” The matronly spellcaster appeared beside the baby, intercepted the attack with a green shield, and then used her staff to send it flying back towards Seven-Armed Fiend. The monster casually put up a black barrier to intercept the attack, but its nonchalance would come to cost it.

Yugi continued his shouting. “With that attack, the magic of Magician’s Circle activates, bringing out Dark Magician Girl! And now I’ll trap you in a Spellbinding Circle while I summon Magician’s Valkyria, Magician’s Valkyria, Apple Magician Girl, Lemon Magician Girl, and Silent Magician LV 0 while my Dark Magician Girl uses Sage’s Stone to bring out my Dark Magician!” Yugi’s cards all appeared as he called for them, while Rafael summoned his three monsters that looked like monks in blue robes. Téa’s Fairy Gift was quick to join the ranks of Spellcasters, but her call for Fire Sorcerer went unanswered. Remembering her struggle to summon Fairy’s Gift, she gritted her teeth and reached deep within herself before calling out her Fire Sorcerer’s name again.

This time, the blonde witch in a black dress materialized, but Téa had to collapse to the ground as she felt a massive energy drain from having two monsters out. Still, if Yugi could handle nine monsters and Rafael six, she was going to endure this strain for as long as she needed to. The army of spellcasters surrounded Seven-Armed Fiend as it broke out of Yugi’s Spellbinding Circle, and the combination of green and teal shields raised by his Magician’s Valkyria and Kiwi Magician Girl formed a solid sphere, trapping the beast. It tried to damage the shield with its destructive orb, but it detonated harmlessly upon impact.

However, the beast quickly proved that trapped didn’t equate to harmless. It raised one of its arms in the air, and an army of Skull Knights rose up outside of the barrier. Rafael called out, “Grarl, Elma, Eatos!” and the three Guardians jumped into combat, but Téa worried about Yugi and whether he would have anything to protect himself. The worry only lasted a moment as she heard his voice still sounding strong, if a little bit strained, as he called out, “Palladium Oracle Mahad!” Téa then breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that card had been Atem’s last parting gift to Yugi and was particularly adept at destroying dark-aligned monsters. Between these monsters and the monsters in the barrier occasionally launching their attacks outward, they were managing to hold their ground for now, but Téa knew they’d have to actually do something different to attack the beast directly.

“So, does anybody have a plan to win this fight yet? I realize we never considered that the barrier keeping its attacks in has to stay solid, which means we aren’t able to send our monsters to attack it directly…” Téa trailed off as she realized something she could do. “Fairy’s Gift, keep launching your Faerie’s Arrow towards Seven-Armed Fiend!” The green fairy charged the orb of green light, then kept launching small fragments of it towards the beast. However, they kept getting nullified by the barrier, leaving Nina to stoop down next to Téa.

“Please tell me you have an actual plan beyond just shooting our own barricade!”

Téa just smiled, even though the energy drain was going from merely exhausting to painful. “Well, my monster keeps phasing out of being solid or not. I’m hoping to get some good timing so the attack isn’t solid and passes through the barrier, but becomes solid again and then hits the target.” As she finished explaining, a few blasts did make it through the barrier, although Seven-Armed Fiend blocked them with a black wall of its own. The move surprised Téa, because she hadn’t expected her Fairy’s Gift to be able to inflict much damage to this monster on its own. If it had to rely on its ability to defend itself, it might not be as imposing as first thought.

Yugi seemed to be inspired by the action as well, as the interior of the barricade suddenly was filled with knives pointing at Seven-Armed Fiend. Téa recognized the Thousand Knives spell just before all of the knives converged on the beast, but it raised a spherical shield of its own causing the projectiles to just bounce off. With even spell cards not working, Téa wasn’t sure what would until she heard Rafael snort.

“So, you’re just going to hide behind your shield every time we attack, are you? Well, no shield can block a pestilence. I call for Purity of the Cemetery!” A white aura appeared around Rafael as a light fog rolled through the area. The master of Guardian cards smirked. “This spell deals direct damage for each monster of yours that was destroyed. And since you so kindly keep sending these weak Skull Knights against us, this is going to hurt.”

Seven-Armed Fiend must have breathed in the fog, as it suddenly let out a horrible screech and collapsed to the ground. Dark Magician quickly summoned more knives, but before Téa could see the result of that attack Rafael let out a pained grunt. Téa turned to see what the problem was, only to see him surrounded by a red aura before he collapsed to the ground and his monsters winked out of existence. Téa’s eyes widened in shock before she heard the sound of a sword being drawn and looked up to see what looked like a man in black armor with a red cape. However, the thing that stood out most about the outfit were the three-foot-long blades extending out from the monster’s wrist, which seemed pointless considering it had just drawn a seven-foot long sword.

Téa recognized the monster as one Atem had briefly used in his deck around the time of the fight with the Wicked Gods. Gorz the Emissary of Darkness would be summoned whenever its master took damage, and in the case of effect damage would inflict equal damage to its opponent. That reflected damage had been too much for Rafael, and now without his Guardians, Téa and her friends were defenseless against the new fiend. Téa was ready to try to at least roll out of the way of the incoming blow, but then a pillar of light struck around Gorz and the monster disappeared, followed by Palladium Oracle Mahad flying to their side. A quick glance showed Seven-Armed Fiend had been vanquished, but Téa knew the fight wasn’t over.

While Nina started performing CPR on Rafael, Téa dismissed her Fire Princess. She’d need to focus all of her energy into Fairy’s Gift’s healing power, and almost immediately the blue light bathed over their group. Téa was only dimly aware of Yugi leaning down beside her and didn’t allow herself to relax until she heard Rafael start coughing. Only then did Téa dismiss her monster and allow herself to fully give in to exhaustion.

However, she didn’t rest on the ground long before Yugi was pulling her up. He also sounded exhausted as he said, “Come on, Téa, we can’t just collapse in the alley here. It looks like we can’t go to your apartment, but we can probably find a hotel or somewhere with a bed to sleep for tonight…” Yugi’s sentence trailed off and she felt him tense up, causing her to turn to where he was facing and see another Mystic Box had materialized. It opened to reveal what looked like a Dark Magician, except in white robes. Before Téa could wonder what was going on, the new arrival spoke, although his mouth wasn’t moving so it was more like someone else was speaking through him.

“So, Yugi Muto, it seems my servant was not quite up to the task of facing you. No matter. If you don’t wish for more damage like you’ve seen here, you’ll step into this Mystic Box. It will take you to my location, where we can finally duel, and I can take back what you stole from me.”

The Dark Magician then faded away, leaving only the Mystic Box behind. Yugi looked at a loss for what to do, but Téa knew the struggle he was fighting. “Yugi, it’s fine. I’ll be okay with the people here. You don’t have to put off fighting for the sake of the world for me. Just beat this guy.” She then leaned in and pulled him into a deep kiss. When she pulled away, she couldn’t help but smile at the blush on his face. Téa chuckled. “Just consider that a promise that I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.”

Téa let Yugi go, and he started walking towards the Mystic Box, only to be stopped by Rafael who grabbed his ankle. “Wait, Yugi, take these. We don’t know where this box goes, and there’s no guarantee you won’t need a ride back.” He handed Yugi a card and a device that looked like a flash drive. Yugi’s eyes widened.

“I can’t take your Guardian Eatos! I know how much this card means to you.”

Rafael coughed. “That’s why you need to take it. I gave you a small GPS tracking device so we should be able to figure out where you are, but just in case that doesn’t work, you need Eatos. If something blocks the GPS, I’ll be able to communicate with Eatos to find you no matter where you are.”

Téa saw Yugi nod before putting the items in his pocket. He then entered the box, and Téa had to suppress a gasp when swords suddenly shot through the box. Only the fact that she had seen this trick before let her keep the panic for Yugi’s safety at bay. He would have teleported to the other side, and then all it would take for this to be over was a simple victory in Duel Monsters. And Yugi would never lose with something important on the line.


	9. Chapter 9

Yugi found that travelling through a Mystic Box was much worse when you weren’t the one controlling the spell. Whereas his last trip had felt more like driving through a psychedelic tunnel with a sudden stop at the end, this trip felt more like a roller coaster ride. He was forced to squeeze his eyes shut just so the lightshow didn’t add to the upheaval in his stomach, and he was almost glad when he pitched forward and landed on a stone floor. That’s not to say the landing didn’t hurt, but he was at least glad he wasn’t fighting to keep his airline food down anymore.

However, Yugi’s arrival did seem to amuse someone in the room. “So, this is the mighty Yugi Muto, reincarnation of the Nameless Pharaoh and master of the Dark Magician? I expected more from someone as blessed as you.” Yugi opened his eyes to see he was in a room that looked half like the shrine where he had dueled Atem and half like one of KaibaCorp’s research and development floors. While the major décor was stone decorated in hieroglyphics, there was also one wall dominated by a massive computer monitor. Yugi caught a brief glimpse of Joey riding his Red-Eyes and Kaiba facing off against what looked like the dark spirit Scott Irvine had summoned before he turned towards the speaker and saw it to be a man with long brown hair and white robes. Seeing it immediately confirmed a hunch Yugi had had since he first heard the name of Jamaal’s benefactor.

“You of all people should know he wasn’t nameless. I was hoping your choice of name was a coincidence, but judging from the looks of you, you’re the reincarnation of the priest Mahad. Why is the reincarnation of the man who swore to serve Atem even beyond death working now to cause so much damage?”

Mahado scoffed. “Why do I need to explain myself to you? Destiny saw it fit to just hand you everything on a silver platter. Some of us weren’t so fortunate. Yes, both of our ancient counterparts chose their fates when they sealed part of their souls away. However, why should you be able to reconnect with the other half of your soul while still holding the other half of mine hostage? Why would you be granted with both your own darkness and mine while I am forced to thrash about in the light?”

The room started shaking as Mahado finished his rant, and Yugi couldn’t help but pity the man. While he had always blacked out for the earlier cases where Atem had taken control, Atem was able to look back and remember how he had acted when he first came out of the puzzle. Back then, Atem had been a psychopath who took joy in meting out punishments for any offense, while Yugi had been a perpetual doormat who wasn’t able to defend himself. It was only after their souls had been in contact for months that each of their spirits could heal from the ancient split and become more of the person they were always meant to be. It sounded like Mahado had never had that opportunity.

Still, an explanation for his actions didn’t constitute a justification. “I understand how difficult it is to live with just half of a soul—I went through that too. But why did you have to put all of these people in danger? We could have worked together to try and help you, but instead of asking for help, you decided to launch a war on the rest of humanity! You didn’t have to attack all of those innocent people or create a bunch of dangerous cards just for that!”

Mahado just laughed. “Do you think I care about any of them? And why should I bother asking for your help? I already know exactly what I need to do to reclaim the dark half of my soul. All I need to do is claim the duel spirit of the Dark Magician. You and I are going to duel right here and now!”

Yugi clenched his fists. “I was hoping we could talk this out, but if you insist on dueling me I’ll stop you. You want to hold to world hostage just to duel me? Fine, but when I win, you are going to call off all of your attacks and we’ll work to solve this my way. Let’s duel!”

A part of Yugi wondered if he would ever find a problem that wouldn’t be resolved with a game of Duel Monsters, but he had seen first-hand how dueling someone would often be the best way to break through to them. He drew his initial hand of Dark Eradicator Warlock, Marshmacaron, Mirror Force, Dimension Guardian, and Dark Horizon. Not the best hand for playing offensively, but there were plenty of defensive options that would let him scope out Mahado’s strategy.

With his opening hand set, Yugi started the duel. “Since we’re dueling on your home field, I’ll take the first turn. I draw!” The card he drew was Dimension Sphinx, meaning he had almost everything he needed to pull of the same infinite loop he had used to defeat Diva. Without knowing what Mahado would be playing, it was probably best to set as strong of a defense as possible. “I’ll set this monster in defense mode, and then add four facedown cards. It’s your move.”

Mahado sneered as he drew. “Almost emptying your entire hand on the first move? You must be putting a lot of stock in your backrow. It’s too bad my deck doesn’t particularly care about that. I summon Magician’s Rod in attack mode!” The Dark Magician’s weapon appeared on the field, wielded by an ethereal ghost of the spellcaster itself. Yugi could see what Mahado’s deck was based on, and why he had made his earlier claim. A Dark Magician deck typically didn’t care about opponents using a large number of trap cards, considering they were easily removed with Dark Magic Attack.

Mahado continued with his turn. “Now that I’ve normal summoned Magician’s Rod, I can activate its effect to add one Spell or Trap that specifically lists Dark Magician in its card text from my deck to my hand. I’ll set the card I added, as well as one more card from my hand, before discarding my Thousand Knives. This allows me to special summon Apprentice Illusion Magician!” Unlike his earlier cards which Yugi was familiar with, this one was completely new. She looked much like Dark Magician Girl, except for her tanned skin, purple outfit, and longer hair that was a much lighter shade of blonde. She even had the same attack and defense points as Dark Magician Girl, although with a much different effect.

“What you see before you is the true form of the Dark Magician Girl, the form Mana herself would have summoned. Unlike your typical whitewashed counterpart, she can do far more than just gain power if a Dark Magician is vanquished. Whenever she is summoned, I get to add a Dark Magician from my deck to my hand! In addition, if any other Dark Spellcaster monster on my field would engage in battle, I can send her to the graveyard from either my field or my hand to increase the other monster’s attack by 2000. It’s how an apprentice should act—supporting her master instead of letting him die for her own power!”

Mahado added the card from his deck to his hand, but Yugi had to interject. “That’s not how things went at all! Mana didn’t let Mahad die. Mahad chose to sacrifice himself, but his teachings lived on through her, and she used that as motivation to get stronger. The point of a mentor isn’t to always be better than your students—what you should be trying to do is let your students find their own strength and help them be better than you are yourself!”

Mahado scoffed. “I won’t ask you to break free from your delusions about history or how to truly use the power of the Dark Magician. But I will show you exactly what your duel spirit can expect once it returns to its true master. Apprentice Illusion Magician, destroy his facedown monster!” The witch began charging a pink blast at the tip of her staff before launching it at Yugi’s Marshmacaron. While he could have easily stopped the attack with Mirror Force, he wanted to save that until he either had something to take advantage of the open field or could destroy more of Mahado’s monsters. Besides, he was far from defenseless.

“I suppose I should thank you. Whenever my Marshmacaron is destroyed, I can summon two other copies from my hand, deck, or graveyard. So now I’ve got twice the defense!” The red blob appeared on the field just in time for the magical blast to hit it, which only caused it to split in two. With this, he’d be able to survive at least three attacks each turn, so there was no need to involve his traps yet.

Mahado growled. “Well, this won’t stop you from having a Marshmacaron left on the field, but I can at least prevent you from having two monsters to tribute. Magician’s Rod, destroy one of his Marshmacarons!” The Dark Magician’s weapon launched a green blast of energy and destroyed the monster on Yugi’s left, but with Marshmacaron having two copies in the graveyard worked just as well as anywhere else.

Mahado was forced to end his turn, letting Yugi draw Dig of Destiny. Placing this card on the field now might be a huge risk considering it would mean he had a field full of traps and thus couldn’t activate any spell cards, but at least placing it on his field would let him use its second effect if Mahado did activate a Dark Magic Attack. “I’ll set this one card and end my turn.”

Mahado laughed as he drew his card. “I was told you were the King of Games. Surely you don’t believe you can win only by defending yourself. But if you insist on making things easy, I guess I can’t complain. I activate my trap card, Magician’s Navigation! This lets me summon a Dark Magician from my hand, as well as another Dark Spellcaster monster from my deck. So, I’ll summon my Dark Magician and then the monster that represents the form he always should have kept, Magician of Dark Illusion!”

Yugi gritted his teeth. In addition to the summoning, Magician’s Navigation could prove problematic since it could banish itself to negate one spell or trap on the field if Mahado had a Dark Magician. It couldn’t be activated this turn, but that effect could prove problematic later. As for the monsters he summoned, the Dark Magician looked like his own version of the card with the colors inverted. The other was a monster that Yugi had never heard of, but the appearance of the card summoned a floating black shadow that mirrored the monster next to it. The shade even had its attack and defense points flipped from Dark Magician’s.

Mahado smirked. “Had my predecessor not been forced to fuse part of his soul with his monster, this is what his favored duel spirit would have been. In a world without a Dark Magician, the Illusion Magician would have been known as the ultimate sorcerer. As long as he is on the field, his name is treated as Dark Magician, letting him use all of the spells that normally only the Dark Magician can wield. In addition, if I activate the effect of a spell or trap card, I am able to summon a Dark Magician from my graveyard. Now, I know your little candy can summon two copies of itself, but I can attack four times. Magician’s Rod, destroy his Marshmacaron!”

Yugi let the blast destroy his monster, summoning two copies in its place. Now came the tricky part. While Yugi could use Mirror Force at any time to wipe Mahado’s field, he would be better off letting the Dark Magician attack him directly so he could activate his other traps. It all would depend on what order Mahado attacked in, but if he wanted to save his strongest monster for a direct attack it would play right into Yugi’s hands.

Yugi did try to keep his face level as Mahado continued his turn. “What, five facedowns and none of them that you feel like activating? Very well, Apprentice Illusion Magician will destroy your second Marshmacaron!” This time the pink burst of magic completely engulfed the monster since it could no longer use its ability to split on this turn. With only one Marshmacaron left and two attacks from Mahado, it was now a fifty-fifty chance if Mahado would attack in the order Yugi wanted.

Yugi had to resist a smirk when Mahado next called out, “Magician of Dark Illusion, destroy his final Marshmacaron with Draining Illusion!” The attack formed a black version of Spellbinding Circle around Marshmacron, which began drawing energy out of the monster until it no longer had the strength to stay corporeal. As the last monster between Yugi and Mahado dissolved away, the modern-day magician laughed.

“Well now, isn’t this ironic? I am unable to obtain the full spirit of the Dark Magician because it’s latched on to you, but my shell of a Dark Magician can be the one to start returning it by bringing you closer to defeat. Dark Magician, attack him directly with Dark Magic Attack!” Yugi crossed his arms in front of his face in case Mahado was also able to make his duel spirits affect the physical world. The precaution turned out to be wise. The blast of white energy hit him with enough force to knock him off his feet and send him skidding across the floor. However, he was able to activate two of his trap cards before he got to his feet.

“I suppose I should be thanking you. I needed to take 2500 life points of damage in order to use this combo. Since I took battle damage, I can activate both my Dig of Destiny and my Dark Horizon! With Dig of Destiny I get to draw a card, and Dark Horizon lets me summon a Dark Spellcaster from my deck as long as it has attack points equal to or less than the amount of damage I took. If you’re so anxious to get your hands on my Dark Magician, I think it’s about time he took to the field!”

It took Yugi much longer than usual to find one of his Dark Magician cards in his deck. Clearly, the physical damage he took from the last attack on top of the strain of summoning so many monsters against Seven-Armed Fiend wasn’t great for his health. He’d just have to hold out long enough for the duel to be over. Eventually his shaking hands managed to place his black-armored friend onto the field, shuffle his deck, and draw a new card which ended up being Magical Blast—a perfect card for the current setup.

Mahado was forced to end his turn, but before Yugi could draw his card a new voice interrupted him. “Yugi, please! You must not leave your Dark Magician on the field!” Yugi’s eyes widened as he tried to figure out this new presence, before a much more familiar voice interrupted.

“If you wish to distract my sworn master for the benefit of your madman, I will personally show you that you lost more than just your colors when you were created from my spirit.” That was the voice Yugi recognized from his Dark Magician when he had talks with that duel spirit, and the words seemed to indicate the original speaker had been Mahado’s Dark Magician.

“You don’t understand!” the white-robed monster continued desperately. “In order to bind your duel spirit to him, Mahado needs to either defeat Yugi in a duel, or destroy you directly. In the latter case, he wouldn’t need to even finish this duel. He could kill Yugi before the duel ends. We’ve tried stopping him, but we are forced to obey, and he cannot hear our voices. He’s ignoring the other spirits in the deck as well. He’s been in the light so long that he’s obsessed with destruction—you need to win in order to stop him. He’s gone too far. I’m worried he needs to be stopped instead of saved.”

Yugi could sense the honesty in the voice and decided to trust it. Besides, Mahado being unable to hear his Dark Magician would line up with his own experience. He was able to hear all of his spirits except for Palladium Oracle Mahad. If Mahado had the light side of Mahad’s spirit, the true duel spirit for Palladium Oracle Mahad would likely be in his deck, just as the true spirit of the Dark Magician was in Yugi’s deck. Of course, he couldn’t respond directly without Mahado knowing, so he had to hope his Dark Magician understood his plan.

Yugi drew another copy of Dig of Destiny. It was certainly a good fallback option, considering he wasn’t planning on conducting a normal draw phase in the near future. “I set one card facedown, and then I sacrifice my Dark Magician in order to special summon Dark Eradicator Warlock from my hand!” Yugi’s Dark Magician was coated in a maroon light, which faded to reveal a new monster. One of the many improved forms of the Dark Magician, Dark Eradicator Warlock had bulkier maroon armor and a glowing purple trident for a staff. Yugi could see Mahado start to clench his fists in rage before he could control himself, which just seemed to confirm that he was trying to destroy Dark Magician instead of going straight for the win.

Yugi felt a bit of satisfaction with that. “This new monster may have identical stats to the Dark Magician, but he has a handy special ability. Every time a normal spell card is activated, he inflicts 1000 points of damage to you—so this seems to be the perfect time to activate my spell, Magical Blast! You take 200 points of damage for each spellcaster I control, and then Dark Eradicator Warlock’s effect will take out another 1000 of your life points!”

Dark Eradicator Warlock launched a small blue and red orb at Mahado, dropping his life points to 7800. Immediately afterwards, Dark Eradicator Warlock summoned a pillar of purple magic beneath Mahado dropping his life points further to 6800. Yugi then continued his move.

“I hope you get used to experiencing that, because my Magical Blast has another effect. During my draw phase, I can choose to skip my usual draw in order to return Magical Blast from my graveyard to my hand. So, I’ll be able to inflict 1200 damage each turn before the battle phase. Speaking of which, Dark Eradicator Warlock, destroy his Apprentice Illusion Magician with Thaumaturgy of Termination!” The spellcaster charged a maelstrom of purple energy around his trident before unleashing it towards the sorceress, destroying her and further dropping Mahado down to 6300 life points. Yugi then ended his turn, facing only an 800-life point deficit.

Mahado drew his next card and gave a wicked smirk. “Well, your combo only lasts as long as I can’t destroy your monster. Unfortunately for you, I just drew the perfect card. You may have sent your spirit guardian to the graveyard, but you’ll find mine won’t go away so easily. Since I just drew this monster, I can summon Palladium Oracle Mahad!”

Yugi gulped as Mahado summoned the monster that Atem had used to vanquish the spirit of the Millennium Ring for the final time. This was one monster his deck didn’t really have an answer to—although with his current facedown cards, he wouldn’t need to destroy it. Mahado seemed to take his level face as a sign he wasn’t aware of the card’s capabilities, however, as he went through explaining the card’s most potent effect.

“You may think your Dark Eradicator Warlock is a match for my Palladium Oracle Mahad, but that’s where you’d be wrong. My partner is the true eradicator, illuminating the dark and ending all of its creatures. Whenever he battles a Dark monster, his attack doubles! Now, Palladium Oracle Mahad, show his Eradicator the true power of Egypt’s greatest sorcerer!”

Palladium Oracle Mahad began charging its attack, but Yugi was ready. “Not so fast! I activate my trap, Mirror Force! Now your attack will be turned against your own field!”

Mahado laughed. “You’d think that, but you forgot about my Magician’s Navigation! When I have a Dark Magician on the field, I can banish it from my graveyard to negate a spell or trap—your Mirror Force is now useless!”

Yugi just responded with a smirk. “Who said I wanted Mirror Force to resolve? I was just using it to bait out your Magician’s Navigation. With that out of your graveyard, you can’t do anything about my next two traps. First, Dimension Guardian will ensure my Dark Eradicator Warlock isn’t destroyed. Second, Dimension Sphinx will make you take damage equal to what I take if you ever attack my Warlock with anything stronger than him. So, your Palladium Oracle Mahad may reach 5000 attack points when it attacks my monster, but now we’ll both take the damage!”

The two traps that had played a pivotal role in defeating Diva appeared behind Yugi, just as Palladium Oracle Mahad finished charging his attack. Dark Eradicator Warlock siphoned off half of the attack and blasted Mahado with it before the rest of the attack washed over Yugi. The flare of light knocked Yugi off of his feet and blasted him across the room, where he missed hitting his head on the wall by only a few inches. It took him fifteen seconds to gather the energy needed just to stand. However, once he put the pain aside, he got to his feet. He saw Mahado stumble to his feet as well.

“Well, it looks like if I reflect your attacks, you receive just as much pain as I do. Maybe that will be enough to convince you. I’m not going to turn my attacks into a punishment, but you’ll have to deal with whatever you turn against me. If you try lashing out it only comes back to hurt you—we can still find a way to end this peacefully!”

Mahado sneered. “Don’t pretend to know what I’ve been through. Destiny saw fit that you wouldn’t have to suffer for the mistakes of your past life, and didn’t give me the same chance. I’ve earned my chance at revenge on the world. Now, I switch my Magician’s Rod and Magician of Dark Illusion to defense mode and end my turn.”

Yugi sighed as he made his move. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t let you keep threatening the world. During my draw phase, I activate the effect of my Magical Blast to return it from my graveyard to my hand. Then I’ll activate it to inflict 1200 more points of damage!” The pulsating ball of magic and the pillar of energy combined to give Yugi the lead for the first time in the game, with 3000 life points to Mahado’s 2600. “Now, my Dark Eradicator Warlock will destroy your Magician’s Rod!”

The taller spellcaster forwent any magical attack, instead jumping forward and skewering the rod to the ground with his trident. A quick twist shattered the weaker casting tool, leaving Mahado down to just three monsters on the field. However, there wouldn’t be much chance to inflict damage via battle. While Dark Eradicator Warlock would be able to defeat Dark Magician thanks to Dimension Guardian ensuring it would survive the battle, attacking Magician of Dark Illusion would just result in a stalemate. Attacking Palladium Oracle Mahad would be a horrible move since Dimension Sphinx’s effect only activated if Dark Eradicator Warlock was an attack target and not the initiator. Yugi knew he still had to play carefully, but if Mahado didn’t have any surprise moves, Yugi could still claim victory in three turns with Magical Blast.

However, Mahado began cackling as soon as he began his turn and drew his next card. “I’ll admit, I was worried about facing you. Even with my higher magical ability and closer connection to the past, I was worried your dueling skills would still be difficult to overcome. However, that’s why I came prepared. If the magic of my past can’t defeat you, then I’ll just rely on magic of my own creation. I activate my spell card, Magicalize Fusion! With this, I can banish monsters from my field or graveyard in order to fusion summon a spellcaster monster. Now, I banish Dark Magician, Magician’s Rod, Apprentice Illusion Magician, Magician of Dark Illusion, and Palladium Oracle Mahad in order to summon my Quintet Magician!”

The monster resembled a Dark Magician in blue and gold robes, but his staff was topped with a green crystal and five copies of Dark Magical Circle orbited around him. With 4500 attack he was the strongest spellcaster in the game, but his summoning did come with a small silver lining for Yugi. “Unfortunately for you, Magicalize Fusion is a normal spell. That means my Dark Eradicator Warlock can still burn through 1000 life points!”

Mahado didn’t even flinch at the purple hologram that took him down to 1600 life points. “Your pitiful warlock won’t be bothering me any longer. My Quintet Magician has an effect of his own—when he is summoned by fusing five spellcasters with different names, I can destroy every card on your field. Now, Quintet Magician, Pentamerous Curse!” The five copies of Dark Magical Circle began spinning before Quinet Magician raised his staff and each blasted streams of golden energy at all the cards on Yugi’s field. Dark Eradicator Warlock managed to survive thanks to Dimension Guardian, but as the trap itself was destroyed, Yugi knew his monster wouldn’t last for long. At least he could survive the turn, and Mahado’s field wipe gave him a chance to make another move.

Yugi managed to cough through the dust cloud left by Quintet Magician’s effect. “When you destroyed all of my traps, that included a second copy of Dig of Destiny. When it’s destroyed by an opponent’s card effect, I can draw one card for each copy of Dig of Destiny in my graveyard—so I draw two more cards!” Yugi drew Magical Dimension and his second copy of Dark Magician, which meant he’d need to rely on the next card he drew in order to survive.

Mahado just laughed. “Draw whatever you like. In addition to his 4500 attack points, my Quintet Magician is incredibly difficult to remove from the field. He cannot be destroyed by card effects, and even if you were to try and force me to remove him by other means his effect prevents him from being tributed or used as fusion material. Now, Quintet Magician, why don’t you knock him down a few pegs? Attack with Quinate Conjuring!”

This time, Quintet Magician snapped his staff downward, leveling it at Dark Eradicator Warlock. Golden chains emanated from the arcane circles, binding each limb of Yugi’s spellcaster, before the fifth chain pierced the monster’s heart. Yugi gritted his teeth as the chains then turned to him. He knew Mahado wouldn’t try to go for fatal damage since that wouldn’t be considered a victory, but that didn’t necessarily help once the chains lifted him in the air. He could only watch as the fifth chain lashed out at his face, and then scream as searing pain erupted in his right eye. He wasn’t even aware of the chains dropping him back to the ground, as his entire world was reduced to a red shroud of pain.

He wasn’t sure how long he lay on the floor with nothing but pain on his mind, but eventually he managed to gather enough presence of mind to reach for his deck. He had found himself in this position often—Pegasus had overtaxed his soul in a Shadow Game; Marik had trapped him in a burning building, dragged him to the bottom of the ocean, and dissolved a part of his body with each loss of life points; and the Spirit of the Millennium Ring had sprung a dimension duel on him after back to back duels with Diva and Kaiba. However, the one thing that was different about this time was he was truly alone—he didn’t have Atem or his other friends ready to help him out. He would need to get through this on his own.

With the stress of the preceding duel, Yugi wasn’t confident he’d be able to pull off a Destiny Draw. Instead, he’d have to rely on the Heart of the Cards. He put all of his faith in his deck and drew his last card, holding it at arm’s length until he finally turned it towards himself. The sight of the golden-robed image on the card brought a feeling of relief throughout Yugi’s body that made him temporarily forget his wounds. In his final duel with the Spirit of the Ring, he had run out of strength just before he could play this card. Now, he would get to use this under his own power. Using Palladium Oracle Mahad’s effect, Yugi summoned it directly to the field.

The golden robed magician appeared in a burst of light, but unlike the burning sensation Yugi felt when Mahado summoned this monster, this light brought a feeling of contentment. While Yugi was feeling soothed by the appearance of his monster, Mahado could only gasp in shock as his spirit monster appeared against him. Quintet Magician was a Dark monster and thus Mahad would be able to overpower the fused monster in battle. Mahado quickly realized his so-called ultimate spellcaster was about to be vanquished.

Yugi managed to gasp out “Attack.” Palladium Oracle Mahad jabbed his scepter into the ground, creating a magical circle in the air that rained down sacred light on Quintet Magician. The fused magician turned all five of his magical circles at the incoming attack, but even with the numerical advantage it could only delay the attack for a few seconds. The pillar of light eventually destroyed the fused monster and knocked Mahado down to 1100 life points.

The crazed magician growled out at Yugi. “You dare turn my spirit guardian against me? No matter. You only have 500 life points, and I’ll be able to defeat you next turn regardless of your monster on the field…” Mahado trailed off as Yugi slid another card into his duel disk and activated Magical Dimension. With that, he sacrificed Palladium Oracle Mahad in order to summon Dark Magician.

The black-armored spellcaster knelt by Yugi’s side and held out his hand. Yugi took the offered hand as Dark Magician helped him to his feet. Yugi managed to breathe out “Finish it.” Without removing his hand from Yugi, Dark Magician turned his staff towards Mahado and fired without looking. The Dark Magic Attack from the black-armored spellcaster took the last of Mahado’s life points.

The holograms quickly faded away. Without his monster supporting him, Yugi once again collapsed to the ground. He didn’t get any chance to recover before golden chains grabbed him and lifted him back into the air. Yugi couldn’t make out the expression on Mahado’s face, but the crazed expression made itself clear on his voice. “You may have defeated me once, but I’m under no obligation to honor our agreement. Get ready to duel again.”

Yugi didn’t even have the strength to do much more than mumble, but he started saying the only thing he could think of that would help him in this situation. It was a chant in a language he didn’t understand or speak, but the meaning was clear from the few different times he had heard the same phrase before. While he wasn’t sure the exact translation, he knew the general meaning:

“Great beast of the sky, please hear my cry. Transform thyself from orb of light and bring me victory in this fight. Appear in this Shadow Game as I call your name: Winged Dragon of Ra!”

A massive surge of heat swept the field, but Yugi barely sensed it. The pain in his body flared, and he knew no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had spent some time looking for a way to give this duel a lasting impact on Yugi, and since DSOD went with having a final chance to see Atem I decided to go a more physical route. Of course, I had to keep in mind that we see Yugi a coupe of times in GX, but then I realized we never actually see his eyes. And considering how Timaeus looks as a duel spirit, I went with that.
> 
> I also wanted Yugi to win completely on his own, and give him a chance to summon an Egyptian God on his own. The cards are gone, but the monsters aren't. Ra is a bit of a desperate move, but once Mahado proved he wasn't even going to follow the basic courtesy everyone else (except Dartz, I guess...) does in the show by stopping their world destruction plans when they lose Yugi knew he had to do something.


	10. Chapter 10

Seto Kaiba found he much preferred blasting into a room on the back of a dragon than sneaking around a castle. While he wouldn’t ever view himself as powerless, the very notion of sneaking around did impart a feeling that someone else was in the position of power. While such things were unavoidable when Mokuba was held hostage, he was much more accustomed to the feeling of being in control. Riding on a legendary beast only exemplified his usual feeling, and by slipping into his typical attitude it was much easier to avoid other distracting thoughts. By keeping his eyes forward, he could almost ignore the strange thoughts and feelings that hit him whenever he turned his focus to the other passenger on Iblis’s back.

Unfortunately, the view ahead proved to be rather disappointing. Kaiba usually enjoyed the reaction to his dynamic entrances, but apparently blowing through a wall on the back of a dragon was only enough to bring a sigh out of Nitemare. It was hard to read emotions on the skeletal face, but the voice expressed more exasperation than actual surprise.

“Of course you would blast through the wall. Never mind that you could just open the door to come in here. In fact, you could have opened whatever door you wanted and it would have brought you to me. I was growing bored of the first act of our little game anyway, so I would have twisted the castle to your advantage instead of your disadvantage.”

Kaiba had unfortunately gotten use to the forces of evil yanking his chain like this, but it seemed Sara hadn’t. “You seem awfully calm for someone who looks half-dead and is staring down a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Now why don’t you free my brother—and my boss—before you end up getting hurt?” A part of Kaiba was offended that Mokuba was clearly an afterthought to her, but he knew that was nothing that could be held against her. After all, he had helped save the world multiple times and had never really been focused on anything beyond the direct impact to himself and his much smaller circle. It was probably good that he and Sara were at least starting out with that in common, since Kisara and—

Kaiba made sure to interrupt that train of thought before it could go any further. If there was an appropriate time to think about that, it wasn’t when a dark spirit was holding both of their brothers hostage. It was much better to focus on the demon as he continued to speak. “Well, it would seem both of you did pass through my challenge, but there is one minor snag: both of your brothers are currently trapped in the Shadow Realm. As I promised, getting through my castle entitles you to one chance to duel for them—but that one duel will save one soul. After all, it would hardly be fair for me to wager two souls against just one, now wouldn’t it. So, I’m afraid you’ll have to decide which soul shall receive the chance for freedom.”

Kaiba’s eyes narrowed. There were some obvious solutions to the stated problem, but Nitemare had to know that. He wouldn’t have gone through this whole plot just to still give someone the chance to just walk away. There was another game at play here, and Seto would have to figure it out first. It seemed Sara was on the same wavelength, as she immediately jumped on the first obvious request.

“So, we can’t offer one soul in exchange for two? Then we’ll just have to up the ante. I’m fine with wagering my own soul that Seto Kaiba can defeat you in a duel. After all, he’s the second-best duelist ever.”

Kaiba logically knew Sara’s assessment was accurate, but it still almost felt like a betrayal to hear her admit he wasn’t the best. Still, he had to focus now. Nitemare’s answer would undoubtably help clear things up.

The demon just chuckled. “You seem to be engaging in a curious mixture of both underestimating and overestimating my abilities. You are underestimating me if you think you are able to make any demands of me, but overestimating me if you think I can just freely manipulate the rules of Shadow Games as I please. One such rule forbids taking the souls of bystanders unless there is a strong connection between the player and the offering. Unfortunately for you, your two souls aren’t quite as connected as you would expect.”

Sara just glared at him. “Blue-Eyes, why don’t you see if he would be more amenable to changing the rules without his legs.” There was another distracting lurch in Kaiba’s stomach as she said that, although he had to admit it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. However, when Iblis began actually charging a blast Seto stepped in.

“Stand down, Iblis. We won’t get anywhere by blasting him, other than stranding Mokuba and Yako in the Shadow Realm. That’s not to say we can’t get them both out, isn’t that right? After all, you wouldn’t have gone through this whole show if it didn’t end in you having a chance at revenge. This whole thing feels like it was the start of a well-prepared plan that ended up getting rushed in the third act. If I had to guess, Mahado was the one who wrote most of this playbook, but once he realized we were on to him, he panicked and brought you in. So, you’ve got the general idea of how to best handicap me, but the execution is a bit lacking. Let’s stop beating around the bush here: you want to duel against me, but aren’t happy with your chances one on one. The only obvious solution would be to put me in a situation that goes against how I usually duel—and what better way than saddling me with a partner who is so clearly below my level?”

At this, Kaiba turned towards Sara and did something he never remembered doing before—he winked at her. He hoped he was conveying that the perceived insults were more part of the show he was putting on than actually intended. Sara wasn’t like Mokuba, Yugi, or Atem, who could read him well enough to identify when something was actually malicious or just bluster. Judging from the look of determination that crossed her face, Kaiba guessed she could at least see where this was going and wasn’t going to hold it against him.

“With that in mind,” Seto said, turning back to Nitemare, “how about we get straight to the point? You have two hostages, and we have two duelists here. We’ll take you on in a tag duel, sharing our life points as a team. Beyond that, we’ll follow standard tournament rules, with no attacks or strategies outside the normal course of the game.”

Nitemare smirked as he materialized what looked like a larger version of the diadhanks used in ancient Egypt, though they were modified in such a way as it could hold actual cards and had five sections instead of three. “Well, you certainly haven’t disappointed me with how quickly you figured that out, Kaiba. However, we will have some additional rules. I will agree to play within the rules of your game and make use of no abilities that you aren’t able to use, but there will be some additional variations. In addition to sharing life points, the two of you will also share a field and deck construction limits. Apart from waiving the maximum card limit of sixty cards, the two of your decks will be considered the same in terms of evaluating if they are legal to use or not. I will also be taking the first turn.”

Kaiba heard what wasn’t included in Nitemare’s new rules—the demon wasn’t forbidding himself from doing anything that Seto was also able to do. Considering Seto was able to influence the cards he drew with the proper amount of focus, Nitemare would probably be doing the same to always draw the cards he wanted. Still, he had grown used to opponents being able to do that between Atem and Yugi, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. “Very well, although if our decks are being considered the same deck, then we should have that extend to our graveyards and extra decks as well. Also, our hands will be our own.”

Nitemare scoffed. “But of course. It wouldn’t really be a tag duel if you both were playing out of the same hand and thus were aware of everything your partner put on the field. I’m sure this goes without saying, but you are also forbidden from directly discussing strategy with each other. In addition, you will be taking turns right after each other, so there are some additional rules in place. While you share the field and thus control of the monsters, it wouldn’t be fair for you to have complete freedom. You won’t be able to attack with monsters your partner used to attack, or switch the battle position of monsters if your partner was unable to switch them the previous turn.”

Seto nodded and activated his duel disk, while Sara took a few seconds to swap out some cards. She then sent a smile towards Seto as she added, “Okay, I’m ready. I’m not even going to bother to assume you would go into this without your three Blue-Eyes, so I took my copies out of my deck. I think that should be good to go.”

Her words were immediately proven wrong when the duel disks shut down. Projected in front of both of them was the warning message showing they were unable to legally play, as their deck contained five copies of both Assault Wyvern and Dragon Shrine. Nitemare just laughed. “As you can see, the game has already begun, and you can’t legally participate. However, I know you have plenty of extra cards on you to edit your decks to be within the limit.”

Seto merely glared, while Sara had a verbal response. “What do you mean, you know we have extra cards on us? How could you possibly know that?”

Nitemare laughed. “In ancient times, I was referred to as the Card Majin. Imagine my surprise when this game switched from being played with stone tablets to cards—it is much easier for me to read the energy coming off of you. However, I will keep to my promise. While I know every card you have on you, I do not know which ones are actually going to be in your decks, and won’t use my ability to tell what cards you are playing or drawing.”

Sara grumbled something that to Seto sounded like “Of course you won’t…” before she turned to her partner and spoke up. “So, it sounds like we need to swap out two copies of Assault Wyvern and two copies of Dragon Shrine between us. Now I know we can’t discuss deck strategy, but I’m sure can at least talk this out enough to ensure we’re legal to play. What are you willing to part with?”

Seto considered this for a second, but with his newer cards it was better for him to stock up his graveyard than clear out his hand. “I’ll drop two copies of Assault Wyvern, but I’m keeping the Dragon Shrines. Does that work for you?” Sara nodded as she started going through her cards to make the needed substitutions while Seto did the same. He took out the two monsters quickly enough, leaving him with only one copy in his deck. However, replacing them took additional thought. Nitemare would still have a general idea of what strategies they could be using, and had all but stated that drawing a particular card would come down to the so-called Destiny Draw skill rather than luck. In that case, it would be more important to take steps for power over consistency, and that meant including the hardest card for Kaiba to summon. He added his Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon to the deck, then added a second copy of Spear Dragon, hoping to take advantage of more piercing damage.

With his deck once again shuffled, Kaiba returned to face Nitemare with an active duel disk. Sara joined him on his left, and this time there were no problems from their duel disks. Nitemare laughed as the room around them faded away, leaving them standing in the familiar purple and black void, indicating the duel had moved to the Shadow Realm. “Now that you’ve set your decks, there is no turning back now. Decide between yourselves who will be taking the first of your moves—it will be your last chance to make use of your free will!”

Kaiba remained stony face at this since he had heard variations of this speech so many times that it had lost all meaning, but Sara flinched back. “How are you so calm about this? Sure, having Pegasus as a dad helped me take some of this magic stuff in stride, but we pretty much just got transported to hell. How are you not freaking out?”

Seto sighed. “Force of habit. If you think living with Pegasus gets you acclimated to all sorts of weirdness, you should see some of the things I’ve lived through. Your dad was just the tip of the iceberg. You are going to have to tough this out, though. The Shadow Realm will do its best to wear you down and feast on your weakness—you have to be strong to make it through this. Why don’t you take the first move?”

Sara nodded and returned her attention forward, where Nitemare had already drawn his opening hand. Seto followed suit, drawing a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Assault Wyvern, Dragon Shrine, Crush Card Virus, and Dig of Destiny. He couldn’t help but find that last card amusing. He had only added it to his deck to prove to himself that he had grown from his past self, who had vehemently denied destiny was in play. Now that he was standing side by side with Kisara’s reincarnation it seemed destiny was having a bit of a laugh at him. Hopefully it would stay on his side throughout the duel.

Nitemare interrupted his thoughts. “What do you say we get this duel started? I’ll set one monster on the field, and then one card facedown. That’s it for me.” Kaiba was almost disappointed—the move was far too simple, and despite yearning for victory, Kaiba did hope that this duel would at least be a challenge. Of course, having Yugi Muto as a rival did make it apparent that sometimes the seemingly small moves were what decided the duel, so Kaiba didn’t rise to the bait and insult the move. Sara, however, was all too willing to voice those thoughts.

“You know, I was a bit worried about this, but if all you can manage to do are two set cards, I’m not so sure you’ll even get a next turn. Now, I think it’s time I take advantage of these new rules. I activate Cards of Consonance, which lets me discard a Dragon type tuner monster with 1000 or less attack to draw two cards. The card I’m discarding is The White Stone of Legend, which has an effect of its own: if it gets sent to the graveyard, I get to add a Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my deck to my hand. Now, I just took out my three copies, but since we’re considered as sharing a deck, that means I can take one from my partner’s deck.”

Seto could only blink in shock for a few seconds. Sure, he had agreed to a tag duel, but he hadn’t expected Sara’s first move to be taking one of his Blue-Eyes. Very few people had earned the right to use his favorite cards like that, and regardless of the strange fluttering he felt when he looked at her, he wasn’t sure if Sara fit into that exclusive club. Still, he couldn’t exactly refuse to apply a card effect without forfeiting the duel, and with Mokuba’s soul on the line, that wasn’t an option. He found one of the two copies in the deck and handed it over to Sara.

“Just as a word of warning, my Blue-Eyes don’t exactly like being stolen from me. Here in the Shadow Realm, cards can do strange things outside the course of a game. I once played a stolen Blue-Eyes and the card self-destructed instead of attacking. I’m giving you Iblis since you’ve worked together before, but I’d be careful about making moves like this again.”

Sara faltered for a second before grabbing the card. “I’ll keep that in mind. Still, how do you know this card is the dragon named Iblis? I can understand being able to tell the duel spirits apart, but the cards should be identical.”

Seto sighed. “It’s complicated to explain how it actually works, but as a gross simplification the cards are identical. Which spirit is tied to which card depends on how I connect them—so if I say this card is Iblis it is, even if in a different duel that card could be a different spirit. If you’re really curious, I’d be happy to spend some time going into more detail about it later.”

It was only as he started walking back to his part of the dueling stage that Seto realized what he had just said. Did he just willingly offer to spend time with someone who was practically a stranger—past lives notwithstanding—to talk about mysticism? That was nothing he could pass off as simply business related, and probably one of the worst ways to ask for a social interaction. It was dangerously close to asking her out on a date with nothing of the typical confidence he associated with his other brief encounters. Only when Sara continued her move was Kaiba able to quiet those worries for now and focus back on the duel.

“Now, I’ll set two cards facedown on the field before I summon my Assault Wyvern! Attack his facedown monster with Draco Ascension!” The blue dragon appeared on the field and swooped down towards Nitemare’s defense monster, which revealed itself to be a large rodent. Assault Wyvern’s jaws easily dispatched the monster, but Nitemare just chuckled.

“Too bad for you, my monster was Giant Rat. And wherever there’s one rat, others are bound to follow. Whenever this monster is destroyed by battle, I can summon and Earth monster with 1500 or less attack from my deck—so say hello to my second Giant Rat!”

Sara wasn’t bothered. “I don’t know—I’d still say that’s worse for you. After all, you have to summon your replacement monster in attack mode, and my Assault Wyvern has an effect of its own. Whenever it destroys a monster by battle, I can tribute it to summon a different dragon from my hand or my graveyard. And considering what you know is in my hand, that spells trouble for you. Now, I sacrifice Assault Wyvern in order to summon Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

Assault Wyvern began glowing blue which shifted to an intense white light as it grew into the form of Seto’s favorite monster. While the act of someone else summoning a Blue-Eyes was still unusual, it didn’t bear the same look as the few times someone had managed to use a Blue-Eyes against him, since it was still summoned to his field. Sara was far more surprised with the move, as she stared at the dragon in awe for a few seconds. “You know, I added these to my deck after I got them, but this is my first time summoning a Blue-Eyes. It’s almost surreal. A part of me has always wanted to say this: Blue-Eyes, destroy his monster with your White Lightning!”

Iblis started charging up the blast before turning slightly and staring at Seto with one eye. That look carried with it an obvious question if it should fully follow Sara’s commands, and Seto responded with a nod. With that, it turned its attention fully to Nitemare’s Giant Rat, vaporizing it with the blast of lightning and knocking the demon down to 6400 life points.

However, Nitemare didn’t seem phased by the loss. “Once again, my Giant Rat’s effect activates, allowing me to summon my third and final copy to the field. For all of your talk earlier, you don’t seem to have made much of a difference on the state of my board. Hopefully your partner has a better move planned.”

Sara just rolled her eyes and ended her turn, letting Kaiba start his. He drew his second copy of Dragon Shrine, which could be helpful, but he’d wait to see exactly what Nitemare was planning with his stalling tactics. “Well, we seem to have a difference in opinion on the quality of that last turn. You don’t think it had any benefit, but I think it was done rather well. In fact, I think it’s worth repeating. I summon my own copy of Assault Wyvern, and I’ll use it to destroy your last Giant Rat!”

Kaiba’s dragon bisected Nitemare’s beast just as easily as Sara’s had, although this time it was replaced by a different monster. Nitemare laughed as he announced his move. “Now that all three of my Giant Rats are destroyed, it’s time to summon my next monster, Hero Kid! Or perhaps I should say my next monsters, since Hero Kid has a special ability of his own—whenever he is special summoned, I can summon as many other copies of Hero Kid from my deck as I want. So, by destroying one monster, you’ve given me three!”

Three kids in red and white spacesuits appeared before Nitemare, with two crouching in defense position and one standing in attack position. With this, Nitemare was guaranteed to have two monsters remaining next turn if he wanted to tribute summon something, but Kaiba would at least make him pay a heavy cost. “If you think I’d hold back from attacking a small child with only 300 attack points, you couldn’t be more wrong. I activate Assault Wyvern’s effect in order to summon a Blue-Eyes White Dragon from my hand! Come forth, Azrael, and lay waste to his Hero Kid!”

Just as before, Assault Wyvern glowed blue before expanding into a Blue-Eyes White Dragon. Unlike Iblis, however, Azrael did not hesitate in launching his White Lightning attack. However, when the flash of light from the attack subsided, it revealed a light green barrier over Nitemare’s field, with the Hero Kids unharmed. The dark spirit laughed. “Too bad for you, but your attack triggered my Draining Shield trap card. Not only is your attack stopped, but I gain life points equal to your monster’s attack. So, despite your best efforts, I now have three monsters left on the field and 9000 life points. It seems my opening move was not quite so disappointing, wasn’t it?”

Kaiba scowled. This would certainly make things more difficult. With two tributes, Nitemare would have had access to most of the monsters in the game, but with three tributes the Egyptian Gods and the Wicked Gods were both in play—or relatively simpler monsters that still had devastating effects, like Beast King Barbaros. That made it more difficult to know exactly how to prepare, but with the cards in his hand he could at least set up multiple options. He set Crush Card Virus and Dig of Destiny before ending his turn, hoping that would help him set up to best counter whatever came next.

Nitemare chuckled as he began his turn. “Still not giving up, despite knowing what I can now bring forth? We’ll see how long you choose to face the inevitable. I activate my spell card, Precious Cards from Beyond! With this, every time I tribute summon something by sacrificing at least two monsters, I get to draw two cards. Just in time for me to sacrifice my three Hero Kids in order to summon The Wicked Eraser!”

A pool of black liquid began bubbling up on Nitemare’s side of the field, and the Hero Kids screamed as they were dissolved in the acidic sludge. Then, a bronze figure slowly rose from the muck, looking as if someone had wanted to purposefully wanted to desecrate the image of Slifer the Sky Dragon. Both gods were serpentine dragons, but this Wicked God had abilities that were in almost direct contrast to Slifer’s ability to grow stronger for each card in the owner’s hand and the ability to weaken the opposing field. This was the only Wicked God Seto didn’t have first-hand experience fighting, but with the latest duel disks it was easy to see everything it was capable of.

Despite that, Nitemare was only too happy to explain his monster’s power. “Behold, the first of the Wicked Gods! My Eraser devours opponents for energy—every card you have on the field gives him another 1000 attack and defense! In addition, my god can erase everything on the field—including itself! While it’s direct effect only destroys itself, if my monster would ever be destroyed—even with its own effect—all other cards on the field are destroyed as well. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Thanks to Precious Cards from Beyond, I get to draw two more cards!”

He drew his two cards and laughed. “I’ll set one of these facedown, and then it’s time for me to use one of my special favorites.” He selected another card from his hand and held it up, although he made sure it was still facing him so Seto wasn’t able to tell what it was. “This card just proves that I am inevitable. I am able to reach across time, and even at the very end of humanity there is enough darkness attached to this single card to ensure I thrive. What is the point of fighting against me when even until the last living human I still exist? You’ll see what I mean soon enough, but for now I’ll just set this card. Now, Wicked Eraser, destroy the girl’s Blue-Eyes with your Digestive Blaze!”

The bronze idol retched out a glob of black acid, and Iblis spread his wings so the blast wouldn’t splash onto the two duelists behind him. That little action didn’t save Kaiba and Sara from the dying screams of the duel spirit, and Sara could only gasp in shock and stare. Kaiba decided to turn his emotions back on Nitemare, sending the spirit and his Wicked God a glare that promised to get him back for that. “Your monster may have taken away 3000 of our life points, but it also allows me to activate my Dig of Destiny! Now I get to draw a card, and since two cards have left our field you attack drops to 4000!”

Kaiba drew Photon Current, which gave him the perfect idea for revenge. It would just have to wait until Nitemare’s next turn, but that was assuming he and Sara weren’t able to do something before that came about. Nitemare ended his turn, but Sara didn’t seem ready to start right away. She had to take thirty seconds of deep breaths before composing herself enough to draw her card. Even then, her voice shook as she announced her move. “I’ll set one monster in defense mode, and since I can switch monsters Kaiba summoned, I’ll switch the remaining Blue-Eyes to defense as well.”

Just from hearing how shaken she was, Kaiba could see exactly how Nitemare was planning on winning this. When it came to pure dueling skill, Sara would be competent enough to hold her own, even if she wasn’t at Seto’s level. However, when it came to withstanding the rigors of a shadow game, she had no experience to fall back on. Her time away from competitive dueling was like taking years off of riding a bicycle—she wasn’t quite as steady as she used to be, but she was able to pick up where she left off. Starting a shadow game was like attempting to run a marathon without any prior practice. If she were to pass out and be unable to make her move, she would be forced to forfeit.

Kaiba would have to work fast and hopefully draw most of the attention to himself. He began his turn by drawing his second copy of Dig of Destiny, which would provide additional advantage when it got destroyed by The Wicked Eraser’s effect. “Your knockoff god doesn’t scare me. I activate my spell, Dragon Shrine! With this, I can send a dragon from my deck to the graveyard, and if it is a normal monster, I can send an additional dragon. So, I’ll send my third Blue-Eyes to the graveyard along with my Arkbrave Dragon! Then, I’ll set two cards facedown and end my turn.”

Nitemare just laughed as he drew. “So, you couldn’t keep up with the power of my Eraser before, and then you go and add three cards to the field.”

Kaiba smirked. “Not quite. During your standby phase, my Arkbrave Dragon’s effect activates from the graveyard. I can special summon any other level seven or eight dragon from my graveyard, so I think it’s time to bring Iblis back to the party. Be reborn, Blue-Eyes White Dragon!”

Iblis roared back to life as the spirit of the golden four-winged dragon carried it back onto the field. Between the two Blue-Eyes, Sara’s set monster and two set cards, and Kaiba’s own set Crush Card Virus, Dig of Destiny, and Photon Current, The Wicked Eraser’s attack points rose to 8000 points. Nitemare shook his head at the display.

“Leaving a 3000-attack point monster in attack mode against my Wicked God? You either are trying to bait me into a trap, or you’ve finally seen reason and have given up the fight. Considering your stubbornness, I’d bet on the former, but I’m curious to see what you have planned. Wicked Eraser, destroy his dragon!”

If this attack succeeded, Seto and Sara would be eliminated from the duel, but Seto had the card to make sure it didn’t. “I activate my trap, Photon Current! When a Light Dragon-type monster on my field is targeted for an attack, it gains attack equal to the attacking monster. Iblis, counterattack!” The duel spirit began glowing with a corona of light so intense that Seto and Sara were forced to shield their eyes, and the acidic attack of the Wicked God was blown backwards with the force. The glow faded to show the Wicked Eraser thrashing around in pain as Nitemare’s life points dropped down to 6000. However, the dark spirit just laughed.

“Well done, except for the fact that by destroying my monster you’ve activated its ability. Every card on the field is now destroyed!” The Wicked Eraser exploded outward in a wave of searing ash that cleared out the field. However, Seto had been prepared for that.

“One of my cards was my second copy of Dig of Destiny, and when it’s destroyed by your card effect, I get to draw a card for each Dig of Destiny in my graveyard—so I’ll take two more cards. Speaking of which, you just lost the two cards you set. Looks like it isn’t so inevitable after all.” Kaiba drew Pitch-Dark Dragon and The Melody of Awakening Dragon, while Nitemare stopped laughing for a second.

“Are you being serious right now? The great Seto Kaiba, self-proclaimed master duelist, just used a card that benefited from being destroyed, and didn’t think I would do the same? Of course I was aware that these cards would be destroyed by my Eraser, but I was aiming for that. The first of the cards was Statue of the Wicked, which lets me summon a Wicked Token to the field upon its destruction. The card I was speaking of was Z-ONE, which when destroyed allows me to return one field spell or continuous spell card from my graveyard to my hand. So, my Precious Cards from Beyond returns to me!”

The golden idol representing his Wicked Token appeared on the field with 1000 defense points, but it wasn’t alone. Just as the statue appeared on Nitemare’s side, a new dragon appeared on Seto and Sara’s, a familiar rabbit-like dragon that Seto recognized from Sara’s duel with Mokuba. Sara chuckled. “Sorry for being out of it, but my set monster also had an effect to play. When you destroyed my Kidmodo Dragon, I got to special summon another dragon from my hand, so I added Rabidragon in defense mode.”

Nitemare didn’t seem too put off by the interruption. “Very well, but now my turn continues. On my second main phase, I re-activate Precious Cards from Beyond! Then, I will activate the effect of the Hardened Armed Dragon in my hand, letting me special summon it to the field so long as I discard a Level 8 or higher monster. I’ll send my Mythic Water Dragon to the graveyard in order to bring forth this new monster!”

The monster that appeared on the field looked like a baby bird more than a dragon, although it was covered in bones that served as armor and resembled wings. It wasn’t particularly threatening on its own with only 1500 attack, but with its effect, Seto could see this turn ending poorly. Sure enough, Nitemare laughed as he continued. “Now that I control an Earth monster, I’m able to special summon my other copy of Mythic Water Dragon from my hand. That will leave me three monsters on the field, and I haven’t used my normal summon yet this turn. Now, I sacrifice my Hardened Armed Dragon, Mythic Water Dragon, and Wicked Token in order to summon The Wicked Dreadroot!”

The stream of water in the shape of a serpentine dragon briefly appeared on the field, but then a forest of bones sprouted along the ground and destroyed Nitemare’s three monsters. The bones twisted together until they formed an approximation of Obelisk the Tormentor. This was the second Wicked God, which Seto had briefly fought before Yako had defeated Kaiba Whereas the Wicked Eraser had variable strength and the ability to wipe the field clean, the Wicked Dreadroot had a fixed 4000 attack and defense, but emitted a powerful miasma that sapped the strength of all other creatures, leaving them with only half of their attack points. Seto himself felt his energy draining, as if he was in the midst of pulling an all-nighter in the middle of the duel. The only one who didn’t seem affected was Nitemare.

“I can see you’re familiarizing yourself with the effect of my latest monster. Good luck getting past this so easily, as any monster that is summoned by tributing Hardened Armed Dragon cannot be destroyed by card effects. You could try destroying it by battle, but you would need to get over 8000 attack points. And since I have Precious Cards from Beyond active, I get two more cards to work with.” Nitemare drew his cards and chuckled.

“Perfect. I’ll set one of these face-down, and then I’ll activate the continuous spell, Advance Zone! Now, on the end phase of any turn where I tribute summon a monster, I will get to apply effects in sequence based on the number of monsters tributed. With one tribute, I can destroy a set card on your field, with two tributes I get to draw a card, and with three tributes I can return one monster in my graveyard to my hand. I’ll end my turn now, and while you don’t have any set cards for me to destroy, I can still draw one card and return Hardened Armed Dragon to my hand.”

That last card just meant this duel was likely to get worse before it got better, as Nitemare was likely working on summoning the last and most powerful of the Wicked Gods. However, Sara had no way of knowing exactly what The Wicked Avatar had in store, and telling her would amount to cheating. He’d just have to hope she was able to pull through and make moves that would help them finish the duel before that happened. However, she seemed to have her own ideas.

“Well, it’s times like these I wish I had Penguin Soldier in my deck to just send your monsters back to your hand, but I guess I just have to play defensively for now. I’ll activate my own Dragon Shrine, sending my second Rabidragon and my Keeper of the Shrine from my deck to the graveyard. Then, I’ll summon another White Stone of Legend. While there aren’t any more Blue-Eyes in the deck, I can still use it as a tuner. My Level 1 White Stone of Legend tunes my Level 8 Rabidragon in order to Synchro Summon Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon in defense mode! But it seems like a waste to only have one monster, so I’ll activate my spell card, Silver’s Cry! This lets me bring back a dragon type normal monster from my graveyard, so Rabidragon will be returning in defense mode as well.”

Sara’s narration played out on the field, with the ghostly forms of a second rabbit-like dragon and a scaled humanoid disappearing within the temple, while Seto wanted to call out to her that she was making a mistake. While he was willing to chalk up the choice of bringing back Rabidragon instead of a Blue-Eyes to personal preference since the would be 25 attack point and 400 defense point differences weren’t particularly meaningful, her move with Dragon Shrine could have been much better. While it was true that sending Keeper of the Shrine to the graveyard was typically a good play and probably the best play she had in her deck, she wasn’t taking the rules fully into account. Had she searched through Seto’s deck, she would have found a card that would be able to defeat The Wicked Dreadroot. The only thing stopping it from being a major mistake was the fact that Seto had a Dragon Shrine in his hand, so he’d be able to rectify it shortly.

Sara ended her turn with her two dragons crouching defensively before her, letting Seto begin his turn. He’d only need one card to finish off his god-killing combo, and this seemed like the perfect time to use his Destiny Draw ability. Sure, he’d have to spend a few turns relying on the Heart of the Cards, but it was a small price to pay for ridding Nitemare of his monster. He didn’t even need to look at the card to know he had drawn what he needed.

“I’ll activate my spell, Dragon Shrine! Although I’m not going to pre-select my card, and I’m going to take some time to look through my deck first. After all, I’m only familiar with half of the cards in what counts as my deck now.” He headed over to Sara, who had a look of realization on her face at what he was really saying. She then smiled sheepishly at him as she handed over her deck, but Seto just smiled back. “You’re actually holding up really well out here. We’ve got this. By the way, I’ll be sending your Tri-Horned Dragon to the graveyard with this move.”

With that, he headed back to his spot in the makeshift arena and continued his move. “By the effect of Dragon Shrine, I’ll send the Tri-Horned Dragon from Sara’s deck and the Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand from my deck to the graveyard. Then, I’ll activate my Return of the Dragon Lords! This lets me revive a level 7 or 8 dragon from my graveyard, so my Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand will return to the field!”

The golden dragon closely resembled Arkbrave Dragon, with the only obvious difference Arkbrave had two sets of wings. Even their effects were related. “Whenever my Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand is summoned from the graveyard, I get to activate his effect. I can target one monster on your side of the field, banish it, and then increase my monster’s attack by the banished monster’s level. Your Hardened Armed Dragon doesn’t protect from this!”

A golden light surrounded The Wicked Dreadroot, but before anything could happen green chains sprang up from Nitemare’s side of the field and bound Felgrand in place. Nitemare just laughed. “Your monster would have been able to banish my Dreadroot, but I was prepared. My Fiendish Chain trap card negates your monster’s effects and also prevents it from attacking. Of course, that last part doesn’t really matter considering it only has 1400 attack points, now doesn’t it?” Seto could only growl as his move was shut down, and he ended his turn.

Nitemare drew his next card. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing too exciting I can do this turn, but I can at least inflict some damage. I’ll set this facedown, and then I think my backrow is getting rather crowded. Let’s free up some space, shall we? My Fiendish Chain will go to the graveyard when your dragon does, so it’s time to take care of that. Wicked Dreadroot, destroy his Felgrand with Fear’s Knockdown!”

Seto was fairly used to seeing Obelisk the Tormentor attack, and the Wicked God version followed the same steps. Black energy gathered around its left fist before slamming it forward into Seto’s bound dragon, obliterating it and dropping his and Sara’s life points to 2400. However, the attack wasn’t a total loss, as Sara interrupted.

“By sending a dragon to the graveyard, I’m allowed to activate my Keeper of the Shrine’s effect and summon it from the graveyard in place of the fallen dragon!” The humanoid dragon descended onto the field, crouching in a meditative posture. As a card with 0 attack points to begin with, it was unaffected by The Wicked Dreadroot, although that wasn’t much of a consolation. The card’s main benefits were serving as two tributes for a dragon-type monster and being an easily recycled 2100-defense point wall.

Sara was quick to take advantage of her new monster. “On my standby phase, I’ll use Azure-Eyes Silver Dragon’s effect in order to revive one of our Blue-Eyes in defense mode. Then, I’ll sacrifice my Keeper of the Shrine in order to set this monster in defense mode as well. That’s all I’m able to do for now.”

Her silver dragon began a melodic warble that Seto quickly recognized as singing. Whatever she was singing must have been a spell of some sort, as Azrael returned to the field and crouched beside Sara’s other dragons, quickly joined by a hologram of a set card. If Seto had to guess, that meant they had four of some of the game’s most powerful dragons standing together, but all they were doing was serving as a defensive wall at this point. They would need to find a way to counterattack, but Seto’s next card was Shift. With only defensive options at this point, he set it, along with his Pitch-Dark Dragon, to give them five monsters before letting Nitemare take his turn.

The demon was quick on the uptake. “During your end phase, I activate my facedown card, Fires of Doomsday! This summons two Doomsday Tokens to my field, with the restriction that they can only be used in the tribute summon of a Dark monster. Of course, I don’t plan on using them for anything but that.” He paused to draw, and then he continued his turn.

“Now, I discard my third Mythic Water Dragon in order to special summon Hardened Armed Dragon from my hand. This gives me three available tributes, just in time to summon the final Wicked God. I sacrifice my Hardened Armed Dragon and my two Doomsday Tokens in order to summon The Wicked Avatar!”

Where the two previous Wicked God summonings had seemed exceptionally painful for the monsters being sacrificed, this time they merely faded away into the darkness of the Shadow Realm. The newest monster was taking its sweet time appearing, and Seto wished it would just get on with it. This was the monster that had utterly crushed him under Yako’s command, so he knew exactly what to expect. That only helped him slightly as he struggled to see anything beyond the dueling field, as the power of the latest creature cast a shadow on the darkness of the shadow realm itself. Eventually it coalesced into a sphere that seemed to absorb all the light around it, like the inverse of the sun. The malice eventually morphed into a black copy of The Wicked Dreadroot as it copied the stats of the other monster—with one difference from what Seto was expecting.

Nitemare couldn’t help but gloat. “Behold, my ultimate monster! When The Wicked Avatar is summoned, my opponents cannot activate spells or traps until the end of their second turns. Since I summoned this by tributing Hardened Armed Dragon, it is also unable to be destroyed by card effects. And by its own effect, it will never be overpowered in battle—it will copy the attack of the strongest monster on the field and increase it by 100 points. It is a slight tweak from the version you may be familiar with that was always one attack point stronger, Kaiba, but this should prevent such absurdities as players having 99 life points. You may have had some hope of overpowering The Wicked Dreadroot, but this monster has no such weaknesses. In addition, I get two more cards thanks to Precious Cards from Beyond!”

He drew his two cards before continuing. “Now, the only thing you can do is keep throwing monsters in front of yourself as a shield—so I just have to work on tearing down your defenses piece by piece. You can still use monster effects, so I think I’ll take out your Azure-Eyes first. Wicked Avatar, destroy her silver dragon with Dark Fear’s Knockdown!” The amorphous god copied the other Wicked God’s attack as well as its form, easily overpowering Azure-Eyes’s 3000 defense with its 4100 attack. The dragon shattered from the impact, although Sara tried to keep up her fighting spirit.

“I can still revive my Keeper of the Shrine whenever a different dragon is destroyed! You won’t get a clear path to our life points that easily.”

Nitemare barely acknowledged the interruption and the reappeared monster. “That won’t help you. Wicked Dreadroot, destroy the Blue-Eyes!” The skeletal god made short work of Azrael, taking out the strongest offensive presence they had on the field. However, Nitemare wasn’t done. “Now that I’m ending my turn after sacrificing three monsters, I get to use all three effects of Advance Zone. I’ll destroy the set monster that required a tribute, draw one card, and then return The Wicked Eraser from my graveyard to my hand. You may be able to stall out my current gods with defense mode monsters, but how will you react when I wipe everything else off the field?”

Green lightning shot out from Nitemare’s side of the field and blasted apart Sara’s set card, which turned out to be Tri-Horned Dragon. He then drew his card and returned the first Wicked God to his hand, meaning he’d only need to amass three tributes in order to summon it and then he’d be able to wipe out any defenses and clear out the remainder of Seto and Sara’s life points. That gave them four turns at most to mount a counterattack, two of which were turns they weren’t able to use any spells or traps.

Sara took her turn, but wasn’t able to do anything with the card she drew. That left it as Seto’s turn, and he drew Krystal Dragon. It was a helpful card to ensure he could get a Blue-Eyes into his hand under normal circumstances, but normal circumstances didn’t involve being this late in the game with his three dragons already in the graveyard. The only chances he had were to hold out hope for getting Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon on the field or trying yet again to trigger Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand’s effect. Since getting more dragons to the graveyard would help his Shining play, he sacrificed his Pitch-Dark Dragon to set Krystal Dragon and ended his turn.

Nitemare scoffed. “You seemed so confident and talkative earlier in the duel, but now you don’t even seem to want to announce your turns. Still, I know you have some plays that can work to stop this. After all, my Wicked Gods are all effect monsters, and you have a card that would perfectly wall them. However, that won’t work if you can’t play it. I activate my continuous spell card, Prohibition! With this, I can declare one card name, and that card cannot be played or use its effects for the rest of this duel. I declare First of the Dragons, meaning you won’t be able to summon your best defense. Now, I’ll set one monster, and then my Wicked Gods will destroy your Rabidragon and your set monster!”

The Wicked Avatar and the Wicked Eraser wound up their attacks simultaneously, easily clearing out both of their monsters and leaving Seto and Sara’s field bare except for Keeper of the Shrine and the currently unusable Shift card of Seto’s. Sara started her turn and was only able to set the monster she drew. Seto’s connection with his deck was finally recovering from his earlier Destiny Draw, as he finally drew something helpful. He laughed at Nitemare.

“You seem to think you have everything all figured out, but I’ve got the perfect monster to throw a wrench in your plans. I summon my Decoy Dragon in attack mode! Sure, this little guy might only have 150 attack points after your Dreadroot’s effect, but that doesn’t matter. Just try to attack him—if you do, I get to summon a Level 7 or higher dragon from my graveyard and redirect the attack to that monster. And considering Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand and Arkbrave Dragon both qualify, a single attack and I’ll be able to banish either all of your spell cards or one of your monsters.”

The baby blue dragon squawked in fear against the much more intimidating Wicked Gods, even though its effect virtually made it immune to their abilities. Of course, such an obvious trap wasn’t likely to be charged into, but that’s the benefit of the Shift trap card. While Seto couldn’t use it on this turn of Nitemare’s, he would be able to redirect an attack next turn and banish one of the Wicked Gods thanks to Felgrand’s effect. With that, he ended his turn.

Nitemare drew his next card. “ I’m not sure whether to congratulate you on a rather clever move, or mock you for thinking I would blindly charge into that trap after you blatantly explained it. Now, I’ll set one more monster face down, and I’ll send my Wicked Gods to attack your set monster and your Keeper of the Shrine.” Sara’s facedown monster was Alexandrite Dragon, which shattered under the pressure of the Wicked Dreadroot’s fist. Still, that was all Nitemare was able to do on his turn, so now Sara would be able to use any of her cards.

However, Seto was shocked by her next move. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t let my tag partner be the only one who summons a wall. I’ll summon Maiden with Eyes of Blue in attack mode! She may look like me, but I’ll leave it up to you to determine which of us is more dangerous. That’s it for my turn.”

The monster appeared, and immediately shattered any doubt about whether Sara was actually the reincarnation of Kisara. The monster had Sara’s face, but Kisara’s hairstyle and robes—not from when she had actually lived, but what she wore in the afterlife as the wife of the Pharaoh Seto. It was almost a shame that his Decoy Dragon was a much better target for Shift, because otherwise he’d be able to forcibly revive his Blue-Eyes nearly endlessly by using Sara’s monster. Of course, that wouldn’t matter, because now it was his turn. All he needed to do was draw one of his two remaining Return of the Dragon Lords and he’d be able to banish The Wicked Avatar. He drew—and got a second copy of Shift. He supposed it was good to have a backup plan in case Nitemare destroyed his other trap, but clearly his drawing luck wasn’t fully back. All he could do was set the card and end his turn.

Nitemare drew his next card. “Well, if you were planning on using Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand to banish my monsters, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. I activate my field spell, Mound of the Bound Creator! With this card, level 10 or higher monsters can’t be targeted or destroyed by other card effects. While the destruction immunity is redundant, the targeting protection means you won’t be able to use Felgrand’s effect on them. In addition, if a level 10 or higher monster destroys a monster by battle, the controller of that card takes 1000 points of damage.”

Chains sprung from the ground and wrapped around both of Nitemare’s monsters, looking more like they were being enslaved than protected. However, the demon didn’t seem to particularly care about his relationship with his monsters. Seto expected him to either end his turn or quickly continue, but he paused for a bit and seemed distracted. He hadn’t been the type to overthink his moves or go silent for long periods, but it was around twenty seconds before the demon began laughing.

“Well, with that I’m now free of my contract. It’s rather fitting that someone who thought they could control a spirit like me would get fried by an Egyptian God. Now that I’m not obligated to defeat you, I can stop playing so cautiously. Not that it matters—my field spell also prevents my Wicked Eraser from destroying itself, so that move wouldn’t work anyway. Now, I sacrifice my set Nimble Momonga and Giant Germ in order to summon Koa’ki Meiru Valafar! Now, this monster may not be as powerful as my Wicked Gods, but it does come with piercing damage on what amounts to 1500 attack. With your 2400 life points and my Mound of the Bound Creator able to take away another 1000, that’s more than enough. Now, my Wicked Avatar will attack Maiden with Eyes of Blue!”

Nitemare’s latest monster would normally be considered a flaming behemoth, but standing in the shadows of two Wicked Gods made it look much smaller. Seto’s hand hovered over his duel disk ready to activate Shift, but he decided to hold off. After all, he could only redirect two attacks, and Nitemare had three waiting in the wings. He would need to use both of his traps to banish one monster now, since he would need to revive Arkbrave Dragon in order to banish Nitemare’s field spell and then Divine Dragon Lord Felgrand to banish a monster. Thanks to the wording of Decoy Dragon’s effect, he’d still be susceptible to damage before his monster’s effects activated, so it only made sense to let Maiden’s effect negate the attack of Nitemare’s strongest monster.

Sara was quick to point that out. “Sorry, but by attacking my monster you’ve managed to stop your own attack, switch my monster to defense position, and bring back a Blue-Eyes from our graveyard.” Seto had witnessed the fate of Kisara in Atem’s Memory World, and for a second, he thought history was repeating itself as Maiden with Eyes of Blue threw herself in front of a massive force of darkness. However, The Wicked Avatar was not able to do what the Shadow Magus had done. Maiden with Eyes of Blue formed a protective shield of light that repelled the Wicked God’s attack, and then called up a stone tablet with a familiar image. In a few seconds, Iblis had returned to the field, hunkered down in defense position.

Nitemare just laughed. “Of course I knew that would happen, but your Maiden can only use her effect once per turn. She may be in defense position, but that doesn’t matter with Valafar’s effect. Koa’ki Meiru Valafar, destroy her Maiden with Rapacious Flare!” The burning colossus launched a fireball at the now defenseless Maiden, although Seto was quick to act.

“I don’t think so. I activate my trap card, Shift! This lets me reassign the target of one of your attacks—so you’ll be attacking my Decoy Dragon instead. And since you are attacking my Decoy Dragon, its effect activates!” Seto was prepared to summon his Arkbrave Dragon from his graveyard to at least remove Nitemare’s spell cards when his vision swam and he heard a familiar roar. He could tell his Blue-Eyes was trying to quickly send him a message. The last time this had happened, it had allowed him to change the future and defeat Ishizu. Trusting his monster, he immediately changed plans.

“Now, by Decoy Dragon’s effect, your attack is redirected towards the Blue-Eyes in my graveyard!” The tiny dragon squeaked in fright as the fireball redirected towards it, and its fear was enough to draw help even from beyond the grave. Djirbil crouched over the smaller dragon and took the blast on its wings before launching it back at Nitemare. Since Valafar only had 1500 attack while the Blue-Eyes still had 2500 defense, the remains of the attack knocked Nitemare down to 5000 life points.

Nitemare scoffed. “So, it seems the modern Seto is loathe to repeat the actions of the past. However, even if you try to save the Maiden this time, it will still end in tragedy. Wicked Dreadroot, crush her Maiden!” The skeletal god wound up for a Fear’s Knockdown, but Seto only smirked.

“Guess again—I have a second Shift! Now, how about we repeat the last attack and bring the final Blue-Eyes to the field!” The Wicked Dreadroot’s fist wrenched sideways as it was forced to attack a different target, and once again a Blue-Eyes rose up to protect the endangered child. However, Nitemare just laughed.

“You may be repeating the last move, but unlike last time my monster is more than powerful enough to defeat your Blue-Eyes.”

Seto laughed right back. “You’d think so, but you’re forgetting one important thing. I banish Return of the Dragon Lords from my graveyard to prevent any dragons from being destroyed by this attack! With that, Azrael will withstand your attack, and since no monsters were destroyed our life points are safe from your field spell.”

An ethereal green dragon appeared before Azrael, intercepting the attack of The Wicked Dreadroot and nullifying it. With that, all three Blue-Eyes White Dragons were standing together on the field, and Nitemare had no attacks left. His Koa’ki Meiru Valafar exploded as he ended his turn. “You obviously have something planned with your three dragons, so I’ll elect not to pay the maintenance cost of my weakest monster and let it go to the graveyard. Now, you’ve worked so hard to set this up that it would be a shame not to let you have a chance to make it work for you.”

Seto was ready for Sara to start her move, but he looked over to see her down on her knees, hyperventilating. Apparently, the stress of the shadow game had finally caught up with her, and at quite possibly the worst time. He wasn’t able to make any major plays on his own with the current game state, so he’d need some help from her. If she passed out now, the entirety of the duel up to this point would have meant nothing. It looked like it was time to use one of Yugi’s oldest strategies.

“Sara, please. I’m not going to be able to beat him on my own. We have to work as a team, and we’re so close to finishing this. Please, just work with me for a little bit more. All I’m asking is for a couple more turns and we can save your brother.” The combination plea/friendship speech didn’t get through to her, so Seto grit his teeth and decided to try one last thing. He hated himself for doing this, but if this was what it took to save Mokuba, he’d be willing to deal with the consequences. “Kisara, are you really going to give up again? You promised me you would always fight by my side.”

The voice that was much closer to the Pharaoh Seto’s than Seto Kaiba’s got a response. “No, Master Seto, I refuse to…” Sara trailed off as she noticed she was back on her feet. “Wait, why did I say that? Who’s Kisara?"

Seto grit his teeth. “The incredibly short answer is past lives. I promise I can explain everything in more detail, but the Shadow Realm is eating away at us. We need to finish this duel fast. Just please don’t start calling me master, and we should be fine.”

Sara turned her attention back to the duel. “Fine, I’ll wait, but for that you’re buying me dinner.” She drew her next card and closed her eyes. “Please give me something good. I activate Card of Consonance, discarding The White Stone of Legend to draw two cards.” It took her a few seconds to finish drawing, but then she let out a sigh of relief. “Now, I’ll switch all three of my Blue-Eyes White Dragons to attack mode before activating Delta Attacker! This will let them attack you all directly. Triple White Lightning!”

Djirbil rose into the air as a glowing golden triangle connected the three Blue-Eyes. Each of them then launched their attacks in unison, and the combination attack knocked Nitemare back and his life points down to 500. The demon stepped forward with a smirk. “I’m impressed, you almost had me there. However, you’re a bit short on inflicting damage, and now your three dragons will be stuck in attack mode throughout Kaiba’s turn. You’ve left the last of your life points open.”

Sara sounded like she was about to faint as she replied. “Not quite. On main phase 2, I activate Polymerization to summon Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon in defense mode. I also switch Maiden with Eyes of Blue back into attack mode and then end…my…turn…” Her voice trailed off as her knees gave out, but she managed to catch herself as she hit the ground. Seto was glad she was okay, but knew he didn’t have much time. Luckily, with her last move, Sara had practically guaranteed the game. All he needed to do was draw any dragon type monster and he’d be able to win this.

On drawing Axe Dragunute, Seto couldn’t help but laugh in Nitemare’s face. “Well, after everything Sara just did, it almost seems like a waste to have me deliver the final blow. Still, I’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate me making her brother wait. I activate my spell, The Melody of Awakening Dragon! By discarding one card, I can add up to two dragons with 3000 or more attack and 2500 or less defense from my deck to my hand. Normally I would get my Blue-Eyes White Dragons with this, but I have a different target in mind. I discard Axe Dragunute for the effect of my spell in order to add Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon to my hand—then, I sacrifice the Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon Sara summoned in order to summon it!”

Cracks formed across the three-headed dragon’s body as its soul was purified into a stronger form. The new dragon burst out of its former shell, radiating enough light that it seemed the Shadow Realm itself was slowly retreating from its presence. The sheer power of the dragon’s glow forced Nitemare to take a step back, but Kaiba knew that was far from the greatest triumph his dragon would achieve.

“With Blue-Eyes Ultimate Dragon gone, that puts 22 dragons in our graveyard, which would raise Shining’s attack up to 9600. Even cut in half, that’s more than enough. Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon, destroy The Wicked Dreadroot with Shining Neutron Blast!”

Seto had gone out of his way to defeat Pegasus to earn this card in order to have a weapon to stand up to the Egyptian Gods. While it had never directly faced the beasts, it had more than shown its worth by destroying Anubis. Now, it was finally getting a chance to show its might against a god.

The dragon unleashed a blast of sparkling light from its mouth and raked it across the skeletal god. It then decided to kick up the intensity and started emitting the light from its whole body. The overwhelming flare of light reduced the Wicked God to just a shadow in Seto’s vision, but the shadow couldn’t withstand the light for long. Not content at vaporizing a single skeleton, the attack continued to Nitemare himself. The demon’s life points dropped to 0, but instead of the scream he had given off last time Seto had defeated him, this time Nitemare’s last words came out in a pained chuckle.

“So, you win again. No matter. By destroying my physical body, you are only helping me ascend to a higher level of power. A nightmare constrained to a physical form still has limits. However, I’ve been spending my time spreading my power so that I may never be sealed away again. I will go from a monster haunting your sleep to a shroud that brings in your inevitable end. Wherever human darkness gathers—be it in a remote island or a crowded city—you will always find me. I may have lost the battle, but I will win the war!”

Seto just rolled his eyes at his disintegrating enemy. “You sound so sure of yourself for someone who has done nothing but lose. If you insist on coming back forever, I’ll just be sure there are always duelists that will defeat you!” With that, Nitemare was fully destroyed, and Seto found himself back in the castle instead of the Shadow Realm. His eyes were drawn to two new additions in the room, and he started running towards Mokuba who was slowly picking himself up off of the floor.

However, Seto couldn’t get more than two steps before his feet started sinking through the floor. Apparently, Nitemare’s demise was undoing the magic that made his castle solid, leaving everyone falling through the floor.

Without thinking Seto summoned his three Blue-Eyes, who managed to catch the four falling humans and started safely lowering them to the ground. As he helped the barely-conscious Sara stay on Iblis’s back, Seto already started looking towards the future. There would be a lot of cleanup after this mess, but he was confident he’d be able to handle it. That just left time open for whatever else he decided to do, and for once he didn’t feel burdened by his past as he looked to the future.

* * *

_March 20_

_Seto Kaiba Reclaims World Title, Announces Duel Academy_

_Written by Hiroto Nagisa_

_After years of attempts, Kaiba Corporation CEO Emeritus Seto Kaiba took home the Duel Monsters World Championship trophy at the latest event. The new champion is pushing to be known as the co-champion, considering previous world champion Yugi Muto was unable to participate after recovering from an injury sustained during the terror attacks of last month and a subsequent infection. While the King of Games was not available for an interview, his girlfriend T_ _éa Gardner was willing to share that Yugi is excited for his long-time rival’s success._

_Perhaps the biggest news unveiled during the event was the creation of a school focused entirely on teaching children Duel Monsters. While such ideas have been floated before, Kaiba Corporation announced it would be opening a Duel Academy on a private island with the express purpose of preparing students to enter the world of professional dueling. While the academy is planned to have high tuition, a series of free prep schools are also planned to open, and any student who excels at the lower schools and entrance exam for the academy will be provided with free tuition, room, and board._

_The new world champion refused an interview request, but a Kaiba Corporation statement revealed that more information about the new academy project will be available this summer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, thanks to everyone who made it through to the end of the story! Special thanks to Quinnec for getting this beta-read and to everyone who left feedback. With this, we've reached the end of the main series, with only two epilogue type one-shots left. Of course, those will answer a couple of outstanding questions, so I hope you'll give them a look when they get posted soon!


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